My long video of feedback... [Version 2]

[PixelTwitch]

Have to admit that I am kinda worried about how people are going to take this…

//youtu.be/BUcEFkFuKsE

[rookie1]

Agree! Game fast and rarely see a Character details …so doesnt worth buy skin for something we dont see …or see very little

Edit : But an HD video and bit more Brightness would have help see more details tho Pixel

[FireWorks]

Could only watch to 15:00 before going to bed but your thoughts on gunplay and skill are extremly spot on. Too hardcore… and even the hardcore players are moaning all the time, so whos gonna play this in the end?

[chippy]

Few thoughts/ideas/whatever:

• Regarding skill ceiling / gap
While I do agree to a certain extent (especially regarding the prediction stuff in quake and such) and understand what you mean I would really hold back on making so big assumptions right now since the player retention is so low. Now this is definately down to this topic for the most part, but dont forget the maps, the lack of a friends system etcetera, they all have an impact on this. With more players you will get a bigger gap and a lot more different “levels” of play. If you think a few steps further ahead we might see servers running some sort of ranking system which only allow players between a certain rank on the servers as well as those “whatever-level” servers. While it’s definately far from perfect it can be a quite elegant solution for the average Joes that just want to hop on and kill some time. Hopefully that makes sense, now if this is viable in the future all comes down to what plans SD has on this.

• Regarding spawn times
Personally I feel like this is also a “middle of the road” problem. If SD are indeed moving away from the ET spawn system they need to make more radical changes for us to try out. As of right now, it feels too close to ET yet far enough from it to make it feel like something else or new is coming which basically ends up being kind of “mjeh, I guess it works”. Again, hopefully this makes sense.

Overall I think the biggest issue is what’s been said from numerous people since I got into the closed alpha: What does DB want to be? It’s getting there but it seems like SD are really indecisive or divided as to what should happen with the game overall.

[onYn]

Okay, glad to see you still so motivated with giving your feedback - even tho I am still not watching all of it and just fast forwarding it, excuse me if I missed some crucial arguments. So there are couple nice things you mention. Some aspects like everything concerning the game play, we can agree on we will never agree - that´s mostly because I always thought and still think, that this is going to be somehow like old SD games, what sounds reasonable for me. But that´s covered in many different threads, so I guess mentioning it a billionth time wont help.

What was really interesting tho, is your suggestion of making the game “easier” to access It´s not like I have a preferred direction, if the game has or has not to be complex and difficult to play, especially at the beginning.

First of all, I think SD really tries to make this game as easy as possible, without destroying there general concept. Many things that have been suggested here years ago, were not implemented into the game, because they were too hard to understand or learn. However, games that you fully understand after a couple of hours, are rather something that you see in the smartphone segment then in PC exclusive titles. If you see something like that for the PC, it´s for kids or something similar to what you have already played in your past. But that´s just a blind assumption of course

Next I would like to think about how much the difficulty of a game really makes it less inviting for new players considering a matchmaking. So yes, you covered the fact that matchmaking won´t solve everything, because people still won´t be able to hit anything, and that the game focuses on different things then any other game that´s currently on the market. That´s something where I ask myself - is this different for other games? In my eyes it´s definitely not - no matter what game it is, there are aspects that will need some studying, before being able to realy play the game. I am the perfect example, for a casual CS and LoL (maybe not anymore) player. But I have no idea of which weapons are actually good, which are garbage, how to throw nades and almost 0 knowledge about maps. I am also often spraying like a retard and have 0 clue why I am not hiting my enemy^^. Before I figure those out, I will never understand and fully enjoy the game. The same goes for leauge of legends, what I actually played a lot recently. But when I think about my first games and those of my friends? We played about 400 games, without even knowing what a meta or last hiting means - what are fundamental aspects of the game. We had no clue, it was hard to follow the action and it was even harder to understand why we lost specific fights, why we missplayed or why we even lost entire games. After 2000 games it´s still the case. So for Dirty Bomb? Yes people will fail at the beginning, like you do with EVEREY new game that you play that isn´t similar to something you are used to, but I have issues seeing this to be a problem. Yes you may need to spam an entire clip here and there, but sometimes even noobs will kill there enemies fast (mostly because it´s standing) and if the game then will be fun to play - no matter how hard it is, this little motivation will keep his attention.

That already mentioned my third concern, and that is that we are talking about something where we don´t know how much it will be affected by a possible matchmaking. So yeah, a matchmaking will make games more fair on a macro level of the game. But I am not sure if you have taken into account the micro managment, that will be different as well. So a major micro element of the game is the aim (and all it´s different aspects), most people won´t be able to aim down someonw who knows how to move. But that´s the point. No one will also know how to move. Most people will just stand most of the time while looking at the map, doing objectives or looking for ways etc, or just run in a straight line without sprinting. Those two effects, will counter themselves out to a huge amount I think. Right now we don´t have this matchmaking implemented and mostly people with different skill lvls face each other, what makes it hard to argue properly if the game is too hard or even too easy.

So the least but probably most important point I would like to mention regarding this matter is the f2p business model. I think SD will do there own research somehow, I can just do some analysis looking at my friends (online & rl). Most of them play 1-3 games (mostly f2p), but usually focus on max 1 and play the others just casually. While they don´t bother spending money for games they focus on, they normally never spend even a bit for the games they just play casually. There are probably many psychological reasons for that, and people who overall just play in a casual way probably behave similar in most cases. The only exception for that would be working adults, maybe with family, who can only play on weekends, but have so little free time, that playing a little bit, is actually a lot of time for them. Those people of course may spend some money, but I think that they are a minority (but I am not sure xD). Since I don´t have a psychological degree, this is just an assumption tho :).
So in my eyes the ammount of money that a f2p can gather, is how actively people play a game. The more you into it, the more you probably understand that the game is giving you enough joy to pay for it - even tho you don´t have to. The 2nd crucial part for earning money with a f2p game is the time that those active players actually stay active. The longer they play, the more they will play is a rule that will most likely apply here. And I think there is no doubt, that a more complex game, with different mechanics to discover and improve on as well as little tricks on specific maps and etc. will keep people playing the game for a longer time, then a rather easy game that once understood, will become boring at some point. Even tho CS for example, doesn´t seem that complex, you really need a lot of practice with your nades, the spray the map and teamplay in order to become decent, I guess I don´t need to mention LoL or Dota2… and in Dirty Bomb it´s the tracking and movement that you need to learn instead.

I wish for SD to find the right balance, but keep in mind that making it just simpler will make it easier to find people who play it and regarding a f2p business plan a very appealing idea in the short therm. The problem tho is, that we are not looking for people who play it, but people who play it enough to be willing to pay for it, what should be the long therm goal and the only thing that really matters.

cheers,
onYn

[Humate]

Nice video - i’ll admit I only really watched it, because I wanted to see how the game has come along.

[Mangosteez]

play it at 62 fps

[INF3RN0]

180 fps sounds like a wet dream for most haha

[stealth6]

I don’t agree that the skill ceiling is very high in DB. Imo they’ve already dumbed it down for the casual players and I’d wish they’d instead increase it with some of the things you mentioned. As for what if a casual player is pit against a better player, matchmaking will be our savior here, look at Dota2 & CSGO… If a player doesn’t know how to strafe, then he’ll be matched against another player who also doesn’t know how to strafe. Unless there’s a small player base cough region locking cough

I actually not really sure what you’re stance is on skill ceiling in DB though since later in the video you say the only real thing is who can keep their crosshair on the enemies head the most consistently which I agree with.

Absolutely agree with the game trying to find some middle ground and it’s just not working. Either give us the ET clone we’re all nagging for or make something new. In the current state the game just constantly reminds me that it isn’t ET, meanwhile not really offering anything new to focus on.

Something you didn’t mention for video makers is that this game will need a match recorder in the game. Something like what Dota2 of CSGO has… CoD has something too and over at BF people are constantly nagging for them to release Battlecorder.

OT: Can you cut down on the amount of times you say “for me personally, what I think,…” you’re already implying it’s your opinion simply by using “I”, I can understand that you want to emphasize that your opinion isn’t the be-all and end-all, but you go a bit over the top imo. Also “Basically”.

[tokamak]

Something you didn’t mention for video makers is that this game will need a match recorder in the game. Something like what Dota2 of CSGO has… CoD has something too and over at BF people are constantly nagging for them to release Battlecorder.

I don’t think that’s going to be much of an issue. There’s already quite a few UE games that have excellent replay features.

We should think bigger, apart from replays a complete integration with TwitchTV or Youtube would be awesome.

Or even more awesome (and headache-worthy), a smart-cam featuring in the replay that automatically follows the main events of the map. Players can then pick their preferred time length (2, 5 or 10 minutes or full length) for the algorithm to summarise the whole match and play it out like you would with a graphic cards benchmark.

That would lower the bar considerably for players to record their stuff and upload it online. Which, in the end, is what a F2P community really thrives on.

[PixelTwitch]

[QUOTE=rookie1;504019]Agree! Game fast and rarely see a Character details …so doesnt worth buy skin for something we dont see …or see very little

Edit : But an HD video and bit more Brightness would have help see more details tho Pixel :P[/QUOTE]

Should be in HD now… Sorry was late so I posted it as I went to bed when YouTube had not finished lol

Could only watch to 15:00 before going to bed but your thoughts on gunplay and skill are extremly spot on. Too hardcore… and even the hardcore players are moaning all the time, so whos gonna play this in the end?

Every game will have its core community of players, especially one with the quality that Dirty Bomb has. However, I doubt it will hit the mass audience with its current mechanics and design.

[QUOTE=chippy;504021]Few thoughts/ideas/whatever:

• Regarding skill ceiling / gap
While I do agree to a certain extent (especially regarding the prediction stuff in quake and such) and understand what you mean I would really hold back on making so big assumptions right now since the player retention is so low. Now this is definately down to this topic for the most part, but dont forget the maps, the lack of a friends system etcetera, they all have an impact on this. With more players you will get a bigger gap and a lot more different “levels” of play. If you think a few steps further ahead we might see servers running some sort of ranking system which only allow players between a certain rank on the servers as well as those “whatever-level” servers. While it’s definately far from perfect it can be a quite elegant solution for the average Joes that just want to hop on and kill some time. Hopefully that makes sense, now if this is viable in the future all comes down to what plans SD has on this.[/QUOTE]

Yea, I get all that but my core of that argument is that low/mid level players are struggling to kill other low/mid level players. Basically making the game not fun for them and very frustrating. I think the idea of stopwatch being a 30 min game could put some people off also. While I understand that games like LoL have a big player base and have even longer play times. Time is much slower in a FPS due to the speed of an FPS. I feel an FPS is much more “stressful” to play as you need to be alert at all times… Still lots more issues I can see for the public players :S

• Regarding spawn times
Personally I feel like this is also a “middle of the road” problem. If SD are indeed moving away from the ET spawn system they need to make more radical changes for us to try out. As of right now, it feels too close to ET yet far enough from it to make it feel like something else or new is coming which basically ends up being kind of “mjeh, I guess it works”. Again, hopefully this makes sense.

I completely agree with you on this point.

Overall I think the biggest issue is what’s been said from numerous people since I got into the closed alpha: What does DB want to be? It’s getting there but it seems like SD are really indecisive or divided as to what should happen with the game overall.

I think the Merc based system will improve as multiple posts from the devs has confirmed they understand the mercs are still to tied to classes. However, I do wonder how much it will improve. Mercs like Sparks, Kira, Phantom, Rhino, Nader, Javalin and Trurtle all seem to have been moves in the right kinda direction… However they have mostly been removed :S so god knows.

[QUOTE=onYn;504023]Okay, glad to see you still so motivated with giving your feedback - even tho I am still not watching all of it and just fast forwarding it, excuse me if I missed some crucial arguments. So there are couple nice things you mention. Some aspects like everything concerning the game play, we can agree on we will never agree - that´s mostly because I always thought and still think, that this is going to be somehow like old SD games, what sounds reasonable for me. But that´s covered in many different threads, so I guess mentioning it a billionth time wont help.

What was really interesting tho, is your suggestion of making the game “easier” to access It´s not like I have a preferred direction, if the game has or has not to be complex and difficult to play, especially at the beginning.

First of all, I think SD really tries to make this game as easy as possible, without destroying there general concept. Many things that have been suggested here years ago, were not implemented into the game, because they were too hard to understand or learn. However, games that you fully understand after a couple of hours, are rather something that you see in the smartphone segment then in PC exclusive titles. If you see something like that for the PC, it´s for kids or something similar to what you have already played in your past. But that´s just a blind assumption of course [/QUOTE]

First off I never mentioned if you should make a game easier or more difficult because that is not the problem. Its about making the game require a wider range of skills and reducing the frustration factors. Actually, its small choices that where done in order to make the game more friendly that have had a negative effect on this aspect of the game. Simply giving players health regen reduces low/mid level players ability to kill off decent players as most fights turn out to be full hp vs full hp. I am not saying that you should remove health regen I am just using it as an example of the kind of things that are having an effect on gameplay perceptions while not being directly linked to the symptoms we notice.

The core issue is that certain aspects of the skill set are so much more advantagous then other skills. Where a player that can have all the health and armour on a game like quake could likely beat out someone that had much better aim, in Dirty Bomb this is not the case. The skill ceiling is high but the required skill sets are shallow.

Next I would like to think about how much the difficulty of a game really makes it less inviting for new players considering a matchmaking. So yes, you covered the fact that matchmaking won´t solve everything, because people still won´t be able to hit anything, and that the game focuses on different things then any other game that´s currently on the market. That´s something where I ask myself - is this different for other games? In my eyes it´s definitely not - no matter what game it is, there are aspects that will need some studying, before being able to realy play the game. I am the perfect example, for a casual CS and LoL (maybe not anymore) player. But I have no idea of which weapons are actually good, which are garbage, how to throw nades and almost 0 knowledge about maps. I am also often spraying like a retard and have 0 clue why I am not hiting my enemy^^. Before I figure those out, I will never understand and fully enjoy the game. The same goes for leauge of legends, what I actually played a lot recently. But when I think about my first games and those of my friends? We played about 400 games, without even knowing what a meta or last hiting means - what are fundamental aspects of the game. We had no clue, it was hard to follow the action and it was even harder to understand why we lost specific fights, why we missplayed or why we even lost entire games. After 2000 games it´s still the case. So for Dirty Bomb? Yes people will fail at the beginning, like you do with EVEREY new game that you play that isn´t similar to something you are used to, but I have issues seeing this to be a problem. Yes you may need to spam an entire clip here and there, but sometimes even noobs will kill there enemies fast (mostly because it´s standing) and if the game then will be fun to play - no matter how hard it is, this little motivation will keep his attention.

That already mentioned my third concern, and that is that we are talking about something where we don´t know how much it will be affected by a possible matchmaking. So yeah, a matchmaking will make games more fair on a macro level of the game. But I am not sure if you have taken into account the micro managment, that will be different as well. So a major micro element of the game is the aim (and all it´s different aspects), most people won´t be able to aim down someonw who knows how to move. But that´s the point. No one will also know how to move. Most people will just stand most of the time while looking at the map, doing objectives or looking for ways etc, or just run in a straight line without sprinting. Those two effects, will counter themselves out to a huge amount I think. Right now we don´t have this matchmaking implemented and mostly people with different skill lvls face each other, what makes it hard to argue properly if the game is too hard or even too easy.

See while I understand your argument you are forgetting one core issue…
The ability to track headshots is not something you simply learn…

Getting to the point where people understand what they need to do is the easy part.
Getting them to the point where they can actually do what they need to do is a totally different matter.

An example would be, lets say running…
If someone decides they are going to take part in a 24 mile race it will not take them that long to learn how to run and start to understand how they pace themselves and all that jazz… However, if they are not fit enough its not going to make any difference. The aspects of Dirty Bomb that play a key role in a players ability, mainly come down to physical dexterity more than mental aptitude.

So the least but probably most important point I would like to mention regarding this matter is the f2p business model. I think SD will do there own research somehow, I can just do some analysis looking at my friends (online & rl). Most of them play 1-3 games (mostly f2p), but usually focus on max 1 and play the others just casually. While they don´t bother spending money for games they focus on, they normally never spend even a bit for the games they just play casually. There are probably many psychological reasons for that, and people who overall just play in a casual way probably behave similar in most cases. The only exception for that would be working adults, maybe with family, who can only play on weekends, but have so little free time, that playing a little bit, is actually a lot of time for them. Those people of course may spend some money, but I think that they are a minority (but I am not sure xD). Since I don´t have a psychological degree, this is just an assumption tho :).
So in my eyes the ammount of money that a f2p can gather, is how actively people play a game. The more you into it, the more you probably understand that the game is giving you enough joy to pay for it - even tho you don´t have to. The 2nd crucial part for earning money with a f2p game is the time that those active players actually stay active. The longer they play, the more they will play is a rule that will most likely apply here. And I think there is no doubt, that a more complex game, with different mechanics to discover and improve on as well as little tricks on specific maps and etc. will keep people playing the game for a longer time, then a rather easy game that once understood, will become boring at some point. Even tho CS for example, doesn´t seem that complex, you really need a lot of practice with your nades, the spray the map and teamplay in order to become decent, I guess I don´t need to mention LoL or Dota2… and in Dirty Bomb it´s the tracking and movement that you need to learn instead.

I wish for SD to find the right balance, but keep in mind that making it just simpler will make it easier to find people who play it and regarding a f2p business plan a very appealing idea in the short therm. The problem tho is, that we are not looking for people who play it, but people who play it enough to be willing to pay for it, what should be the long therm goal and the only thing that really matters.

cheers,
onYn

So like you mentioned a lot of this is just based off assumption right now so I cannot really comment.
Cheers for the feedback.

Nice video - i’ll admit I only really watched it, because I wanted to see how the game has come along.

And how do you think its coming along?

play it at 62 fps

Why do you say that? It feels quite choppy for me at 62 fps on a 144hz monitor.

180 fps sounds like a wet dream for most haha

I would normally agree but my 180fps does litirally feel sub 60 most of the time (apart from the first few min in a match)

I don’t agree that the skill ceiling is very high in DB. Imo they’ve already dumbed it down for the casual players and I’d wish they’d instead increase it with some of the things you mentioned. As for what if a casual player is pit against a better player, matchmaking will be our savior here, look at Dota2 & CSGO… If a player doesn’t know how to strafe, then he’ll be matched against another player who also doesn’t know how to strafe. Unless there’s a small player base cough region locking cough

I actually mean that certain aspects of the skill ceiling are very high (as in not limited) how well you can do in a 1v1 fight 9 times out of 10 comes down to who can aim at the head better. Its not like other aspects have a low skill ceiling either… Its actually much worse… Many other elements that could add to the skill set have been left out to dry to the point that they are almost irrelevant. Again, like I mention in the video, my issue is not that it will be unfair in future, just simply that low/mid level players will not have as much fun as they will likely struggle to kill other low/mid level players.

I actually not really sure what you’re stance is on skill ceiling in DB though since later in the video you say the only real thing is who can keep their crosshair on the enemies head the most consistently which I agree with.

My stance is that while the skill ceiling can be defined as rather quite high… The required skill set is very shallow… Where in other games someone with great aim would be able to kill you like they can do in DB, at least there was often other options to counteract their aim. Kinda like getting a full stack in quake, better positioning in CS or better movement in tribes. DB just falls flat in this respect and either needs to limit the skill ceiling on the aim or increase it on everything else. The core problem is skill set balance right now.

Absolutely agree with the game trying to find some middle ground and it’s just not working. Either give us the ET clone we’re all nagging for or make something new. In the current state the game just constantly reminds me that it isn’t ET, meanwhile not really offering anything new to focus on.

I completely agree with you here. However, I do not feel like the majority of people on these forums do…

Something you didn’t mention for video makers is that this game will need a match recorder in the game. Something like what Dota2 of CSGO has… CoD has something too and over at BF people are constantly nagging for them to release Battlecorder.

I did… I actually had a big section about giving us a client side demo recorder for videos.
I agree its important for people like me that make videos and also it helps keep a record of competitive matches long into the future. Also helps limit hacking, gives us cool frag movies and so much more.

OT: Can you cut down on the amount of times you say “for me personally, what I think,…” you’re already implying it’s your opinion simply by using “I”, I can understand that you want to emphasize that your opinion isn’t the be-all and end-all, but you go a bit over the top imo. Also “Basically”.

Yea I should have just done a disclaimer at the start explaining all that. Normally when I make videos I would ensure that all this stuff never happened. However, not like I can share the video so did not really give any consideration to all that jazz… But thanks for the feedback mate.

[Erkin31]

Yea, I get all that but my core of that argument is that low/mid level players are struggling to kill other low/mid level players. Basically making the game not fun for them and very frustrating.

For me it’s not a problem, it’s an advantage. It means that the learning curve is not bad (but I think that the learning curve of DB is still too low).

In Tribes, a new player will have some difficulties to frag another new player, it’s because the game have a deep (and fun) gameplay which needs to be learned. When I’m this kind of new player, I’m happy, because I will have to practice and learn the game. And I know that even after a lot of hours of gaming, I will learn/discover new things.

If I haven’t to learn to manipulate a game when I start to play, this mean that the game haven’t a lot of things to offer me, I will not be motivated to progress and I will stop to play to it.

[Glottis-3D]

watched till the quake-stuff. and i very much agree on that.
quake had phisycally different set of weapons. like tracking (shaft and machinegun), poin’n’click (railgun), prediction (rockets and plazma) and very difficult prediction (grenade launcher). there were lots of combos (especially in CPMA with instant weapon change) like rocket2rail or shaft2rail. on top of that you had rocket jumps, plazma climbing. speedboosting of your teammates in CTF.

i know players, who can make airrockets and cannot use shaft at high level. or guys who rail like beasts, but cannot shoot with plazma. - there is always something, where you are good at.

and dirtybomb needs to give every player possibility to become good at something ingame.

//other stuff gonna watch later.

[Stinger]

First of all great video.
I share your concerns about monetization system. Its just like it was in Brink- all those fancy outfits, tatoos etc. which you coudnt even see playing on low details with fast gameplay. Having in mind that Nexon is on board, I only hope it wont transform into some pay to win bull**** if “cosmetic only” model fails.

As for low/mid skill players “problem”, I wouldnt be concerned at all IF there is matchmaking/ranked system inmplemented. I dont know how much did you play ET, but skill ceiling and skill gap was imo even bigger there. The difference is ET had various mods. While higher level players played almost exclusively ETpro, newbies and casuals found their safe haven on NQ, Jaymod etc. and guess what mods vast majority of servers run
The other thing are maps, team size and spawn times - these three dont work together very well on publics. I will get on the band wagon and say we need much better maps. The ones we have now are narrow, feel small (even if they arent) and with current spawn times and spawn locations they generate this, hated by everyone, meatgrind effect. On the other hand small team sizes on these maps give a very good player such a big impact on the game that (without any real equalizers in the game) is beyond balancing. Watching the ingame chat you could probably say team balance is the biggest problem with the game right now and I wouldnt disagree. I probably havent ragequited that many times in any game for the past 10 years If you are in clearly worse team you feel overwhelmed, hopeless and frustrated. I didnt feel that way even being spawncamped in ET for half of a round.
So…for the public play, I would recommend making bigger maps with more side objectives and increase team sizes. Give players some breathing room !

[edit]
For the clarification, I really like the game overall, I just feel it has potential to be soo much better.

[tokamak]

For the clarification, I really like the game overall, I just feel it has potential to be soo much better.

Crazy mercs paired with interactive maps. The sky really is the limit. I have the feeling we’re still only setting out the canvas for some amazing surrealist spectacle.

[onYn]

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;504036]
The core issue is that certain aspects of the skill set are so much more advantagous then other skills. Where a player that can have all the health and armour on a game like quake could likely beat out someone that had much better aim, in Dirty Bomb this is not the case. The skill ceiling is high but the required skill sets are shallow. [/QUOTE]

Well, some things we asked for, like strafe jumping, would be such a skill that can be mastered and can create many benefits between, during and after every fight you do.
On the other side, if compared to Quake games, we miss some of those unique skills, like stackable health and armor, but instead we have different team mechanics for every single objective etc. So as a team there are enough possibilities to make up for worse aim - teamplay matters in almost every team game after all. For a single player it´s not that easy, but he also has a specific role he can become and fulfill to a very high degree. He just needs to find something that fits him and his abilities best. I know many people from games like QW and now DB that have a very lousy aim/tracking but a very good game understanding and by that are very good players and even compete at a very high level.
I realy think that there is enough space to find roles and mercs that everyone can play well to a certain extent and enjoy it, even if he cant play the usual rambo class that jumps in you face and aims you down in an instant. But if there are any ways, to include different important skills into the game (without removing old ones) I am realy looking forward to see them

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;504036]See while I understand your argument you are forgetting one core issue…
The ability to track headshots is not something you simply learn…

Getting to the point where people understand what they need to do is the easy part.
Getting them to the point where they can actually do what they need to do is a totally different matter.

An example would be, lets say running…
If someone decides they are going to take part in a 24 mile race it will not take them that long to learn how to run and start to understand how they pace themselves and all that jazz… However, if they are not fit enough its not going to make any difference. The aspects of Dirty Bomb that play a key role in a players ability, mainly come down to physical dexterity more than mental aptitude. [/QUOTE]

Sorry but I heavily disagree. I am playing games that require those tacking skills for a long time (casually for most of the time tho), and I myself wanted to become better and thought about if I can learn this kind of stuff. And even tho I am not a big shot, I mastered it to a degree where I can fully enjoy the game, and even fight against some good guys here and there. And since we are talking about physical ability: I suffer some nerve issues, that make my hands shake more then they usually should. But if you just play the game, and watch how you and your enemies behave, how to position properly etc, you will be able to read the game and by that be able to predict where and how your enemies will move. It´s like learning to catch a ball - at the beginning you wont be able to catch them, but after some time you will be able to tell with a given speed and hight, where they will land.

I honestly don´t think that humans do, that you can´t learn (given a health body of course)… At least that´s part of a healthy persons philosophy, according to some NLP books.

[Scarhand]

At first I didn’t see how you could change skill gap without changing skill ceiling. But I remember ET being loved by both the ultra-skilled and the absolute skill-less. People who couldn’t hit you standing still in front of them loved ET as their favorite shooter, despite the high skill ceiling it had. No other FPS has ever done this as well as ET has. The reasons for this simply aren’t present in DB at the moment.

In ET you didn’t have to aim to be super helpful. You could plant mines, repair vehicles, drop medpacks, call artillery, grab a disguise and open doors, remove mines (with pliers or by walking on them) etc. In DB it feels like if you don’t have skill you aren’t going to be useful in any of these ways. You can repair vehicles and call artillery sure, but it takes more skill to do so in a constructive way in DB.

In ET you could have fun just chilling on the server with cool people. Servers could be customized in whatever way you wanted. Didn’t like the game? Play on a different server and it might be completely different. Fun maps or serious maps, optional double jump, custom weapon damages, admin commands, different mods with different feeling hitboxes, I’ve even done races on minas tirinth. In DB you don’t have this. The game is centered around scrim, not pub. The skill-less have no place here. There isn’t options. There isn’t fun settings. You can’t chill with people on a server and just play around. You have to play serious - always.

The skill-less have no place in DB. That is the problem with the skill gap. In ET the skill ceiling was still high, but people who had no ability to aim where still helpful, and included it as their favorite FPS games. It can be ultra-competetive and pub friendly at the same time. You can keep it fun with a high skill gap while keeping the skill ceiling high. People thinking the game isn’t all that fun will only get worse as less-skilled players get introduced. Matchmaking wont fix this.

And it has to be friendly to those skill-less players for you to make money without making it pay to win.

And yeah, performance is pretty important to FPS games. More so than any other genre. I know we wont see optimization at its best until right before release, but I’m really doubting that you will be able to make it good enough. I actually feared this the first time I saw Unreal Engine.

[PixelTwitch]

Sorry but I heavily disagree. I am playing games that require those tacking skills for a long time (casually for most of the time tho), and I myself wanted to become better and thought about if I can learn this kind of stuff. And even tho I am not a big shot, I mastered it to a degree where I can fully enjoy the game, and even fight against some good guys here and there. And since we are talking about physical ability: I suffer some nerve issues, that make my hands shake more then they usually should. But if you just play the game, and watch how you and your enemies behave, how to position properly etc, you will be able to read the game and by that be able to predict where and how your enemies will move. It´s like learning to catch a ball - at the beginning you wont be able to catch them, but after some time you will be able to tell with a given speed and hight, where they will land.

I honestly don´t think that humans do, that you can´t learn (given a health body of course)… At least that´s part of a healthy persons philosophy, according to some NLP books.

Dude…
You really make no sense sometimes…

Sure… You can practice and practice and learn to do certain things… The issue is how long it takes, the depth of the mechanics you learn and if they are either mental, physical or mental+physical based skills. People want to play games… They do not want to put thousands of hours into speeding up their reflexes, upgrading their pc so that they can minimise latency and getting their arse kicked while doing it.

My issue is that the CORE SKILL REQUIREMENTS for entry to the game are far to high.
When this happens you get a very high drop off when it comes to retention rates.
Retention rates are one of the most important factors of a free 2 play game.

This is why I mentioned in the video that I would not have most of these concerns if it was a pay to play game…

[tokamak]

That was really well said. W:ET could get away with such freakishly high skill-ceiling for shooting because it offered so much more than just shooting. The skill gap could be astronomical without impacting much of the rest of the game because there were more routes to take.

[INF3RN0]

I’ve said it a lot, but there’s not a whole lot of complimentary mechanics or depth to the game play atm. At this point the highlight of the game experience is shooting your gun at the other guy, which isn’t offering anything special. I’d like to see full commital to the merc based system, make them much more unique and have a lot more complimentary mechanics to that concept. Integrate the mercs and their abilities into the map design. The weapons offer enough of a skill gap atm to start pushing the potential of everything else further. You don’t have to make the game really hard or confusing for a first timer, but you can offer the potential for waaaaay more additional individual and team growth. A new player should understand enough to have a good time, but there’s got to be more to learn and practice to hold retention past fragging.