Hey!
I am onYn, basically a nobody, but I have spent thousends of hours playing ET:QW, and really enjoyed it´s competitive aspects. That´s why I was super excited when I heared about Dirty Bomb, now Extraction, and even more that it´s focus is to satisfy copetitive needs and also is “shaped by gamers”. Basically because there is NO OTHER simillar game to what you have done so far, so if you don´t develop a SD typical game, everyone here is waiting for, no one will. I don´t want to say with this post, that everything is bad, I kinda enjoy some aspects of the game allready, but there are lot of things that I just dont understand and that bother me. If you look at how many Alpha testers have allready droped the game, and just wait for long awaited updates, and how many still playing testers, say they will drop it soon because nothing changes you prolly should reconsider these things too.
I have read and heared couple of times, of how much focus, this game will put into competitive play. Sorry I don´t belive this. I also don´t understand why your trying to change the most succesfull formula in the history of your company in an important game like this one. But lets get to the specific points.
Strafing: Like I said in another thread allready, the feeling to slow down so fast while jumping just feels wrong for a movement focused game like extraction. That´s just inacceptable for general game feeling. Also, you said you want to make an comp focused game after all. But as far as I heared, you don´t want to implement Strafing, because it´s too complicated. Wait, what? Strafing is something, that people neeed to get used to, that was a skill you needed for playing on a high level, for playing competitive. Strafing isn`t something super hard to learn, it was just something you could do, in order to get a slight advantage in positioning and was generaly a part of everyones skill setup. But nothing that made it “too op” for general pub, who wasn´t interested or able to learn this. I seriously don´t see ANY reason, why someone who really tries to develop a game that is somehow focusing on competitive aspects, take away this awesome tool. It is not only important for skill matchups, but also adds some dynamic, something to do while just running from a to b and also a way to do some awesome accrobatic kills that are simply awesome to watch.
TTK: One of the main reasons, ET and QW became so succesfull, was because people could play, somehow chaotic, and in comp of course more organized, games, where you just had fun. There are many reason why this made so much fun, but one of the easiest one I know, was the much higer time to kill, then in most other games. If someone on pub aproached me from the back, I still was able to kill him, as long as my skill level was aboive his. It was hard, but allways a satisfying moment and doable. In chaotic pub fights (and this will ALLWAYS happen in 8v8 objective based pub maps), there is just no way, that this shorter TTK, then like in ET:QW, will benefit the fun of the gameplay. It just becomes more frustrating, because pretty much everyone can kill you, if he shows up behind you. Aiming skill, isn´t rewarded enough by this, and this is horrible for a competitive focused game I think. In a game mostly without radar and wih so many places to hide this happens verry often, and no ones like to die too often, too fast, just because he get killed from the back, even tho it´s not his fault, because it´s pub and chaotic… I dont think that frustrating people this way, will be good for the amount of active players in this game. In comp this will also result in much faster fights, that arent so exciting to watch anymore (because you cant see the difference in aiming skill so clearly anymore, where just the best could take out enemies within an instant), but especially not so entertaining to play. The problem I see here is not the dmg, tho, but the high rate of fire of most weapons.
Weapon Handling, Nades:
I like the weapon handling, somehow, probably because it is one of the few points, that at least reminds me of some older games. I allready mentioned the rate of fire, that feels wrong, and doesn´t fit in the typical chaos on the battlefield in this game. Besides that, the horizontal recoil just is wrong. Of course it is not huge, but it cant be compensated, and when you aim for the head, it can decide about headshot or not, what can by quiet frustrating. The vertical recoil seems fine, should be maybe even improved for the super strong weapons but this definetly still needs tweaking. But you can´t make rnd horizontal recoil (no matter how low it is), in a game that is supposed to be suited for competitive play, where people have to aim for the head and high accuracy is needed, or it just becomes a game of luck.
Another annoying point (for me at least), is that you have to hold down the right button for sniping, and also just can switch so fast from sniper to secondary weapon without any delay. Basically, people who are decent with a sniper, will just instakill everyone in the future. Because even if they don´t hit the head, they just have to switch easily to the next weapon and finish you off. By automatically unscoping with just not pressing the rigth button anymore, this becomes even easier. You are just taking away clicks, that may sound useless, but somehow makes the sniper less usefull in close range, what it should be. I also don´t know, but it feels so wrong for me, to hold the button pressed all the time while trying to aim properly. But that is probably just something I would have get used to.
What I really dont understand, is why only one class has nades. I mean no matter how you make the maps, there will be allways a way to completely camp the entrances to an objective, or room, or spawn or whatever, and just insane hard defenses that will be almost not to overcome anymore. Nading also is a skill, that is important for an fps, and should be part of every class. It is a skill, that every good player, who wants to play competitive has to master, and taking this away, will definetly result in much more boring gameplay, to watch or to play. Just watch some gameplays of old games you made, and how many insane moments where created by clutch placed nades. The timing, the angle to throw, the impact a single nade could have on a comp match was insane and the fun watching 3 or more people geting blowed up by one nade was just ridciolous. Also many hilarious teamkill nades won´t happen anymore. Lot of funny moments will be missed out because of this. Sad…
Trickjumps:
Again, a verry unique part of your best games so far, and responsible for so many interesting tactics, like sneaking a objective or spawn and also geting the enemy team from the back. I again dont see how someone who tries to make a competitive game, would remove them from the game. They were another skill, that was necesssery for comp play, and everyone who called himself a good player had to train them. On the other side, they were not needed for pub play, so people who just casually wanted to play some maps, didn´t really have a huge disadvantage (same goes for strafing), and stil could use some of the more easy trickjumps if they wanted too. It simply added depth to the game, and allowed to do many inreresting things and also was funny to watch, when a good player failed them 
Objective classes:
Okay, SD is known as far as I know, for one thing: that is Objective orientated gameplay. And what the heck are you doing with it? You pretty much remove it. There os no more objective, there is just a button to press. The objectives has lost all of their character, because everyone can do them. You could just allways make a bomb plant defuse objective, and no one would realise it. I have allready mentioned this in another thread, how wrong this is. Of course, some classes have their own specific objectives they do faster, but many tactics, and ways of how a game can develop are gone. You cant stop a team from lemming an objective, because everyone can do it, you can´t focus on killing the objective guy, you cant stop a team if they have won a teamfight, even tho some poeple of your team have survived, and so many other situations I can think of. Again, if I think back, about exciting games I watched and played, it was so often that team a has won a teamfight, and one brave LAST MAN STANDING from team b was able to slow down the objective build, or even stop it, just by gibing the enemy objective guy. That was the time everyone was shouting and screming because of excitement, and for me some personal heros were born ;-). You can´t do this anymore now, because if you kill and manage to gib him, it wont be rewarded, someonelse will just build it… this particular thing, was a strength of few intelligent people, who realy understood the game mechanics. Teams that had tactics to do this frequently, were even able to beat much stronger teams, and it was allways so excting! I will allways remember a match where it was my team, who got simply outskilled in shooting by the enemy team. But with some insane team coordination (also with nades) we managed to win the map by simply gibing the enemy objective guy over and over again. I won´t forget how often I just said “wtf. you guys are insane”. In the end this gave us confidence, and we managed to win the whole match in the end. Such clutch gameturns, just wont be possible any more.
And for the pub play? After some time, people will think that some class is overpowered, and they will all stick to it. You can allready now notice such a trend. And why? Just because we dont need the objective class in pub plays anymore. If enough people touch the objective, it will be done quick enough, if or without proper class.
HUD:
These really are little issues, that won´t really decide about how the game feels like. But I still would like to mention them.
First of all, the missing health bars of the enemies and friendly players (or was it just me that oversaw them)? If I play medic, I want to know, in a pretty easy to see way, how much health exactly my teammates have. So that I can give them some med pacs. This is jsut something, that will help pub medics out, and also allow the teamcommunication in comp play, to focus more on other things, then talking about who needs a medpac. If it comes to enemies, it is little more important. I allways see how much health I have, and by this, also how my chances are to win the next fight. But I can´t do this, when I don´t see how much health the enemy has. This causes several issues. First of all, I don´t know if I have to run and wait for my team to help me out. Also I don´t know who to focus, if two enemies suddenly stand in front of me. Considering all of us are equal in Skill, I will have to decide if I should run, or try to fight. If one of them is low in health I may decide to fight them 1v2 and hope that I pull off some nice gameplay, by focusing the low one first, and then go for the 2nd. I can´t do that tho, without seeing how much health they have. This makes it impossible to judge situations proparly in game. Also when I am low on healt, and see someone runnin arround with full health, it will be much more satisfying if I manage to kill him and see how his whole healthbar drops down. Also I can see if someonelse is shooting him with me when his healthbar drops faster then it shoudl according to my hits, and I may decide to fight even tho I am lower, or he is a better player. And in the end, if he is verry low in health, I also may decide to aim for the body instead for the head, when it´s not necessary in the specific situation to aim for the head.
Next point, are arrows over the heads. I don´t think we play a game, where we want the enemies to be hard to see. Thats why you also make the characters of every team different in colour, so that we can notice who is enemy who not, and also probably try to make them stand out from the envirement so that everyone can see the enemy clearly. But there are often situations, where you shoot someone, who is standing infront of a background, that has a smiliar colour like the enemy your shooting at, and then it gets confusing where to shoot, and actually if I have to shoot or if he is gone allready. I have seen some posts about people who have mentioned some serious issues with this case, and some simple arrows will solve this. It just sometimes is really hard, to shoot someone who is standing in a brush, and an arrow will fix this. This arrow of course just should show up once you should be able to see the enemy anyways, and dissapear as soon as he is standing behind a solid wall, shield, or something else. It will also help, to see from the distance if someone is gibed or not. In a game, where gibing is as important as in Xt, it should be easy visible even from far distance (what´s not the case, if you dont have thos arrows), if someone is gibed or not, wether it is your ally or your enemy. I don´t think in the end, games should be decided, by someone who died, but was lying invisible in a brush or something, and there was no way knowing if he is gibed or not and got picked up again. Or because you have shot someone lying dead and almost invisible in the brush, or behind a wall with just the head looking outside, for so long time, because you had to be sure he is gibed, and died on your own because of that.
I think that seeing the ally or enemy, and his status, if he is alive, with how much health, or if he is dead or gibed, shoudln´t be made harder then it has to be, so that proper decission making can be done, and the gameplay focuses of the real exciting aspects of the game to make gaming and watching as exciting as possible, and not a mass of investigation cases if someone is gibed or not, because of distance, brush, or something else, or just few body parts that are visible.
Als I would love to change the colour of my nick and clantag and also would prefere more usable letters for the clantag, but thats just personal preference I guess.
Maps and Spawns:
I will definetly as soon as I have played the game more and made up my mind, how to improve those (maybe I will never tho, because I have no Idea how to make a map exciting ^^) edit this thread. But I can allready tell, that some spawns that you can capture are needed, and also a way to decide where to spawn.
So, dear SD, I came pretty ethusiastic into the alpha, and even tho for me it´s playable so far, but not as exciting as expected, you have changed, a lot of the things, that made your most succesfull games, so succesfull to the wrong direction. I think I can backup this easily, with the general attitude in this forum (that is not bad, it is all complain in a costructive way I think!) and also with the few people who really enjoy playing the game, or rather still play it. You also don´t really behave, like you told us you will, because I have heared so often, how much this will be a competitive focused play. But so far, I don´t think that this game is suited for competition at all. And all the changes (compared to previous succesfull games) you made in order to make it easier to access, and make it “noobfriendly” backfired really hard I think, so that pub aint really enjoyable either.
You said this game will be shaped by gamers, but you seriously should consider, to which type of gamer you want to listen, and what you want the game to become in the end. Because rigth now, it feels like you try to make a game for pub matches, that fits into competition, instead of making a comp game, that motivates new players to play it, and helps them to learn the game with all it´s depth and interesting aspects. And honestly, if you look at some of the most succesfull f2p, it´s not simple games, where you know everything after jsut having played a couple of matches, but games where even after playing hundreds, or thousands of hours you find some new ways, to win, or still can improve specific skills.
Everyone, who still plays this game, and is posting here, is pretty much saying the same, with some small differences, but the general attitude is the same. And this are the people, who post this on and on. Because they really, really loved your games, and like myself have incredible high hopes for this game, mainly because there is no other chance of geting a game like this. These are the fans, that you have gathered in your past games, and that simply fell in love with your work. Those are the people, that you should try to satisfy most. We are maybe not the biggest group of people, and by that not interesting enough, to listen too much what we have to say, but free to plays develop best, by simply people, who suggest those games to their friends. I will bring on my own, at least 5 people into this game, because I want to play with them competitively as a team. And probably even more friends who just want to play it casualy. Who also will bring people to this game and on and on. Also, most of the people arround here, are interested in some version of competition, doesn´t matter if professional, or just fun cups.
Right now tho, I just hear from most of the people, that they don`t know if they will play the game, because of the current issues, like that the game has no depth, there is nothing interesting to learn, and practice, and also the maps are not well done so far. But it´s those people, it´s the community, and the friends of everyones of this community, who will in the end decide if this game becomes succesfull or not.
I completely understand, that a company needs to develop new things, and try out new stuff, because without inovation there is no success. But I think, that your trying to change the wrong things. Your trying to change the things, that made some of your games golden, and tweak the wrong things instead of focusing more (you allready fixed the hit reg on Xt, that was allready a huge step!) on aspects that really caused your passed games trouble, and made them die in the end. And if you dont carefully decide, upon changing the things that worked good so far in your games, I am pretty sure, only few people will stick to this game for a longer time then a couple months after release.
Well, I know it´s written down a little bit chaotic, and my english is probably horrible too, but I really wanted to say this.
cheers,
onYn
PS: If I am saying “changed things…” I know that some of them never have been into Xt, but what I mean is changed to your previous game, and compared to what most of us expect from this game.
