Removing features does not grow a player base

(KayDubz) #1

I made this post in reply to someone in another thread. But I felt it needed its own discussion…as Ive see a number of veterans promise to leave the game if more features are removed.

And removing features is NOT how you grow a game. (removing 8v8, removing Execution, Removing maps, removing Objective and eventually Stopwatch from server browser) All these poorly planned removals in my opinion

People keep telling me the game will grow. Meanwhile on a Saturday afternoon, it takes me FIFTEEN freaking minutes to get into a competitive ranked game. On a Saturday in the USA. That says a lot. And then, we had one person leave the match, and now after getting rolled for several minutes we have to surrender. And guess what? I’m NOT waiting another 15 minutes for a match…I’m just going to play another game I have on my PC.

And when loyal players who enjoy the game share their displeasure, we have the “dev-defenders” dismiss them by saying “we’ve heard you guys say DB will die before…same ole story”. Well…DB isn’t dying…but it surely hasn’t grown much, if at all in 2 years of being on Steam. Growth is primarily measured in concurrent player base…but tbh…I expect this game to have gone the way of Brink within a few years. Sad but, that’s what I believe.

And how many players have they gained overall? The game averages the same amount of players as it did when I started playing over 2 years ago. Itll average under 5k players concurrent for the life of this game. I don’t expect it to grow past that. Dirty Bomb is what it is. People tried it, most leave…and some stay. Itll never be a widely played shooter like TF2, COD, BF, Overwatch, Rainbow Six, etc.

Seriously…the game hit Steam two years ago…averaged 13k players for how long? A week? And then dropped off hard over that following month. Now the game averages around 2 to 4 thousands players depending on the whether a new maps or merc is released. Some veterans come back for like a week or so, then leave again.
Ive given up thinking this game will take off.

(TheStrangerous) #2

There’s also the fact that DB is in “BETA BUILD”.

Wonder when version 1.0.0.0. will be released. And will it have a huge impact?

(KayDubz) #3

Speaking of Beta…I just had the game crash on me during a ranked match. I then restart the game…and instead of it asking me to rejoin my match…I get a Ranked penalty and cannot even search for a new match.

I think I’m done playing for the weekend. Really sick of this crap.

(watsyurdeal) #4

To be honest I get tired of hearing the Beta Excuse, this game has been in Beta for as long as I have been on this forum. For a game that has transactions and new content being pushed out rather than old content being put back in, it sure does not feel like a Beta. It feels like the Devs can not decide what features or stuff they wanna work on first.

If that is case, I’ll make it easy, Counter Play and Gun Fights, the most essential part of the game. Each ability needs reasonable counter play, and each gun fight whether it’s a win or loss should feel like that because you outskilled, or out skilled someone else, not because your spread seemed to go all over the place.

I’m being harsh I know, but I’m getting to a point where I am seriously worried if this game will be the same game I fell in love with so long ago, or just be completely changed because a few people had a bad time.

(Pumpkiller) #5

I’m more concerned about what kind of move SD will do to release their game and what kind of publicity it’ll have.

Nobody wants this game to end like Robocraft did upon releasing it. Hell, somehow, i don’t even believe that getting DB out of beta would change it’s popularity on Steam and on the contrary do some harm to it the way it is right now.

(kittz0r) #6

maybe don’t play rank like everyone else? thats why your shit takes ages to find a Game, nobody wants to play it.

2-3k average is still more than Lawbreakers and most of the other news F2P Games, so whats your Point? because you are Butthurt about something what maybe happen?

(henki000) #7

I dont know if some game studio has actually revert removed content and made it succesful move. It’s not that important to look at macro statistic, to see what happens to playerbase after each update. Quality over quantitity. You have two choices, be the artist or let the people decide. If you mix these together, they can work against each other and you never get full resources. These radical, almost anarchy like content removals makes us expect new radical content. But during the process, now we expect same oatmeal every morning, when there used to be bacon and eggs. Well, to be honest, bacon and eggs updates were rare even before, but we had hype, we had high anticipation. Dirty Bomb got fat, but I dont mind looks. There is only the dull people left. It’s the way to heavyweight league.

(GatoCommodore) #8

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havent read the long text but now i did

(KayDubz) #9

@Pumpkiller said:
I’m more concerned about what kind of move SD will do to release their game and what kind of publicity it’ll have.

Nobody wants this game to end like Robocraft did upon releasing it. Hell, somehow, i don’t even believe that getting DB out of beta would change it’s popularity on Steam and on the contrary do some harm to it the way it is right now.

Explain Robocraft to me. Seems like it just released after a few years of being in Beta on steam. Seems to have about double our player base in Dirty Bomb (around 5 to 8k concurrent players depending on the day)

Looks like it got a bump in player base during the first week of its official release…then dropped off the last several days.

(KayDubz) #10

@kittz0r said:
maybe don’t play rank like everyone else? thats why your @$!# takes ages to find a Game, nobody wants to play it.

2-3k average is still more than Lawbreakers and most of the other news F2P Games, so whats your Point? because you are Butthurt about something what maybe happen?

Law breakers stupidly costs 30$. That’s their problem. I wouldn’t pay 30$ to play that game.

EDIT - Ive likely got a LOT more hours in DB than you have. After over 2 years playing, I think I have a pretty good idea of the direction the game is heading. If its “butthurt” to give a realistic reasoning of why this game hasn’t grown, then you can sod off with that trolling.

(KayDubz) #11

@GatoCommodore said:
http://forums.dirtybomb.com/discussion/comment/237684#Comment_237684

Whos talking about only Execution being removed? What about removing 8 v8 ? What about removing Objective from server browser and forcing people into miniRanked? (Casual MM)

(binderr) #12

This game still has too many issue and all the bug that come with every new update / content updates. I hate to say it but CMM is just like competitive without friendly fire. Takes long to join and 6v6 is just not fun as 7v7 or 8v8 used to be. Thus I use server browser for objective games.
Furthermore I did not like the change to daily award system either, it seems they made it even harder to earn credits now compare to earlier but they’re rather say its easier to new players. I normally don’t play more than I need to earn the mission bonus and thats it because after that playing even half hour games don’t get you 500 credits so I just don’t bother playing.
I really wish with they’de scrap the current crafting system for something easier and quicker for new players and veteran to craft gold/cobalt. Crafting system just punishing!!

(GatoCommodore) #13

@KayDubz said:

@GatoCommodore said:
http://forums.dirtybomb.com/discussion/comment/237684#Comment_237684

Whos talking about only Execution being removed? What about removing 8 v8 ? What about removing Objective from server browser and forcing people into miniRanked? (Casual MM)

damn they removed the objective 8v8 from server browser there?
the fuck is SD thinking

thats like the bread and butter of Dirty Bomb

result of people complaining about balance i guess.
now they let algorithm do the matchmaking and now this happen
they traded the time to get in a match with the mythical “balance”

guess what, the kids who calls for casual MM didnt play dirty bomb anymore.

(Unrivaled) #14

DB won’t grow. Simple as that.

Almost everything SD does is a step in the wrong direction.

I came back to the game at the beginning of the summer after a year-long break. I wanted to give DB another chance, because this game still feels special to me. And there are so many cool things, the voice lines, the graphical identity, all these things that make the game so unique. No other game has such a cool identity.

But when you play the game, you can’t have fun. The “difficult to learn, impossible to master” punchline, which attracted me to the game more than 2 years ago, is complete bullshit. The game barely requires any skill. Too many explosions, too many cheap kills, too little skill required.

Javelin is not the problem, she’s just the proof that the game will never be balanced, and that SD doesn’t know what they’re doing (who thought that making all other ammo supports useless was a good idea?).

The problem is that when you don’t let people choose and force them into one specific way of playing, you can’t make a good game. Devs don’t think Execution fits into the game? Fk all those who were playing it (and I wasn’t one of them), let’s remove it! Devs think 5v5 and 6v6 are better than 7v7 and 8v8? Fk all those who liked these, now go play 6v6! People are not happy with Quick join? Let’s replace it by something that’s not even better and force everyone into it by removing the server browser!

A game shouldn’t be something that tells you what to play and how, it should give you different options to enjoy it as you want, whether it’s in a purely fun environment, a bit more serious casual environment, or a competitive environment; whether it’s by searching for a game yourself so you can choose the game mode, the map, the amount of players in both teams, the progression of the game when you just wanna play those 5 last minutes before having to go to work/school, or whether it’s by being handed one without having to do anything (cough for 5 minutes cough).

Devs imagine the game one way, and everyone has to play how they want us to play, not how we want to play.

So I came back a few months ago, and I’m quitting again, probably forever. I’ll keep an eye on what happens because the game is and will always be special to me, but I probably won’t play it again. I finished this Ranked season because I like finishing things I start, but now that’s probably it for me.

Not even gonna talk about the fact that everything that comes out is bugged, that some bugs stay in the game months before being taken care of, the in-game trading is still not there after 2 years, some loadouts are ridiculously bad (wasn’t gen 2 supposed to have balanced loadouts?), and I could go on and on and make a list of more than 50 problems in this game.

But I guess all of that is explainable by the fact that the game is in beta.

(ThePigVomit) #15

Piss, moan, bitch, whine…

(ImSploosh) #16

In my opinion, they ruined DB and it’s going down a terrible path. Everything from the daily rewards to the map design is making me not want to play the game. I’ve spent a decent amount of money on DB (over $100). It’s been almost 2 years now since I started. I have made dozens of posts mentioning some of the many problems the game is experiencing currently, none of which will get fixed (most likely).

The game is shaping up to be a cut/paste shooter CS:GO shooter with abilities. I don’t know anyone who wants DB to be a “Who peaks first” FPS or the boring, simple, linear game it’s turning into. The changes to the game are going in the wrong direction. I get it, they want to compact the gameplay, narrow the maps, make the game smaller. However, that is NOT what the game is. It’s a big game with big abilities and movement-focused. The new maps as well as Dome’s terrible redesign show the problems.

I started playing DB for its semi-parkour focus as well as its unique, open, objective-based maps. What we’re getting now are linear maps lined with invisible walls and pointless debris blocking off any useful routes or jumps. It would be nice to see the maps take a better path and turn into parkour playgrounds. DB has a unique speed to it, in between other military shooters and games like Quake. This is what gives it so much potential. Slowing it down or speeding it up will kill the game, but that’s where we’re headed. The maps are starting to not reflect the pace or flow of the game.

Think about it like this- we have the Assault Course which is designed to test your DB abilities. It has trick jumps and tons of movement-focused obstacles and various ways to approach each section. However, moving into maps like Vault, we’re stuck with linear paths that are limited in how you can approach the objective. You’re stuck with dull paths, few sightlines, invisible walls, random debris, useless routes, etc… These maps need to be opened a bit and allow for more tactical gameplay, not the same “spam the corners with explosives” design that it is right now. Hell, I think the Assault Course itself would make a fantastic map if it was opened up. Would have made an excellent Execution map… RIP.

That’s my side of it anyways. CMM, removal of 7v7 and 8v8 servers, map design, and everything else mentioned is leading me to other games. It’s actually sad to me. DB was the best shooter I ever played. It really took it to another level with the gameplay as well as the silliness and fun you could have. After hearing the discussions with the devs, it’s unfortunate to me that we’re not heading in the direction I looked forward to. I guess it comes down to whatever’s best for business though. Sadly, too many game companies are unwilling to break through and make a truly unique, community-based experience. Games used to be unafraid to do this. These free-to-play and early access games always tend to slide off back into the same terrible patterns as other games before them.

All of this is just my opinion of course and I’ll continue playing a little for the time being. As you said, Dirty Bomb won’t necessarily die, but it won’t grow either.

(molest_dead) #17

The game needs no removing of any features, what it needs are only some serious improvements. Here’s a shot list of these I always think of when playing. Of course, If you (I mean you developers) want more players and to make game more attractable.

The most balanced merc in the game is Skyhammer. The most important merc for me is Vassili, as I got most of fun in the game playing Vassili. So here’s something about him.

1). Make Vassili possible to shoot no-scope (like in CS https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=rURbie5cmIo). This would be great.

2). Make Vassili shoot with the same accuracy when jumping/running/in motion.
These improvements was realized in Enemy Territory Quake Wars and everybody I asked like them very much.

3). Reduce reload times (between two shoots in a row) of all sniper rifles (I mean Vassili, Redeye, Aimee etc) to a some balanced standart. To get rid of spammer snipers (you know what I mean). For example, Redeye has a great smoke advantage. Okey, but Why now he shoots faster then Vassili? There is no good answer. Get rid of that already.

Now concerning some other classes

4). Balance Nader/Javelin etc by Reducing damage of nades, rockets etc. You want bazooka merc - okey, now balance it. I mean, this is unfair, because now you got the Fragger with large reload time (to throw another same nade). The purpose is transparent: to get rid of noobs/lamers and basically balance the game.

Another thing that pisses me off is that smoke because of nader’s nades (I play on minimum requirements, I got good 4 core PC with good Nvidia video card). Remove or reduce the smoke, because the smoke of nades spam is worser than the nades’ huge damage itself. I just cant see because of smoke.

5). Balance medic mercs like Aura/Phoenix etc. I mean there, for instance, the concept about rebirth of Phoenix is great, I like that very much. But aid rates must be balanced. The rate of curing by Aura’s aura must be reduced. The medpacks must be reduced and so on, well you know what I mean.

6). Balance the Turtle merc. As far as I have been playing since Turtle merc was introduced, I can’t get how to destroy the shield fast and easily (am I a moron?). It must be balanced somehow (e.g. easily destroyable shield OR make it bulletproof on BOTH sides).

And get rid of that VERY high jumps. I like jumps but not very high jumps. Just annoying.

Maybe, the game also needs some improvements in merc’s health balance (likd annoingly large health of Rhino etc.). And do something with that player teleportation problems due to differences in pings (you know what I mean). That’s all for now.

(BlackboltLW) #18

@molest_dead said:

1). Make Vassili possible to shoot no-scope (like in CS https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=rURbie5cmIo). This would be great.

You can do this already

2). Make Vassili shoot with the same accuracy when jumping/running/in motion.
These improvements was realized in Enemy Territory Quake Wars and everybody I asked like them very much.

This is a feature back then (including that instagib headshot) and he became too overpowered

(bgyoshi) #19

This doesn’t sound like the game for you dude.

No matter how many threads you make and no matter how many complaints you file, they aren’t going to listen to the loud minority.

For real, just find another game. This one isn’t going in the direction you want and it’s not going to. They’re going to tailor the game down to what they want. 7v7 is out. 8v8 is out. Execution will not return. Like it or leave it.

They aren’t under some impression that player count will go up when features get removed, they’re under the impression that removing features will cause people who only played for those features to leave, and ensure that veteran and new players that stick around will be there because they like the game that SD wanted from the start.

I’m starting to suspect all modes that aren’t 5v5 were Nexon’s forced idea and SD never wanted them to begin with.

(Mc1412013) #20

@bgyoshi said:
Execution will not return.

Never say never l.one of the devs i belieive in redit said they werent scrapping the code. Yes we may never see it again but then again nothing is stopping them to re release it after beta ends either as part of the game or a stand alone app. They said they dont have the resources to keep up on it at the moment l. never said officialy they were burning the code.