My current relationship with DB is more akin to a bad case of Stockholm syndrome. While I don’t enjoy DB as much anymore, I enjoy everything else less so I’ve pretty much invested my all into this game’s decaying corpse so I can whinge about past glory days. Maybe Midair will be good, but right now, it looks like DB might be the last stop on the last train on a defunct route. This isn’t SD’s fault. Competitive FPS, as an entirety, has stagnated. I’m not saying there aren’t any good FPS games; Siege is very good and Ironsight might have a chance to make something of itself, it’s just there hasn’t been a shooter in years that has really caught my attention. When DB finally kicks the bucket, I think I’ll hang my coat on FPS as a whole.
I actually have a fairly in depth post I’ve been working on delineating possible improvements for some of the most controversial mercs ( e.g. Turtle, Guardian; Hunter should just be removed ), but like so many other posts I start and don’t finish… I’ve just lost interest. It’s not like SD cares anyway, right? Who would even read it? It seems like the forum population has halved from average 6-8 online to 2-3, mirroring significant reductions in twitch viewership and player count ( via Steamcharts ).
I don’t want to repeat what’s been constantly repeated in the past, so I’ll say this:
SD is working hard to improve the game. Communication with players has markedly increased, but not improved. An important distinction. I feel the devs have been avoiding difficult questions about DB’s future, instead opting to only field softballs, playing a short term game with intent to generate hype toward the next patch to distract from the deeper rot afflicting DB. While it’s nice SD is more visible, their actual presence is still negligible. In fact, the one time SD did seem to make an effort to tackle a difficult question, the response was so inept it quickly became a meme ( Shoe’s infamous “not happening” incident ), so perhaps the issue is more along the lines of SD’s CM’s being unequipped to express SD’s intentions properly. This explanation, at least to me, makes some sense as it’s hard to rationalize this kind of… error otherwise ( outside of the Trump administration, heyo ).
So what are the “hard questions?” What’s SD’s endgame? What is DB going to be? To me, it seems there is a fundamental schism dividing DB’s playerbase into two camps and SD is trying hard to accommodate both. The problem is these two groups have such different expectations and different definitions of fun that they are entirely irreconcilable. On one hand you have hardcore vets who, lured in by SD’s early promises of a truly competitive, skill-based shooter, have high expectations and specific ideals. Individuals who define fun through struggle and accomplishment. On the other hand, there are forever scrubs who think tryharding is a disease and just want to play a modern F2P CoD. The type of scrub who gets upset when an actually good player dunks them, momentarily interrupting their entitled expectations of an endless endorphin stream delivered via low effort, instant gratification cheese because to them, hiding in a corner as a cloaked Phantom and stabbing a Proxy in the back is the epitome of skill.
True story: The other day I was in a match and said, “hard melee damage should be reduced” to which a Kirtana player instructed me to, “kill myself immediately” in response.
And here’s the thing. Blizzard likely struggles with the same issues with OW, but I believe their playerbase is represented by a much more balanced spread of players, from super casual to hardcore and everything inbetween; if this distribution where to be plotted, the resulting graph might be nearly flat. This gives Blizzard wiggle room even while they try to maintain a middle ground as they will never truly alienate enough players.
On the other hand, DB’s population, plotted, likely resembles a valley with players clustered into the two extremes with hardly anybody between. At this current state, and even into the foreseeable future, no matter how SD tracks, they will always upset one group, and when you only have two groups of players, well, it’s not a good situation to be in.
So SD should pick a side and effectively communicate that decision with the express intent to triage. If SD decides to side with casuals, DB will likely experience a significant exodus of experienced players, but at least SD will then have the freedom to pursue the game they now want to build and DB will likely be healthier for it. General “toxicity” will likely decrease as SD can more easily manage their new unified community because the truth is the most significant cause behind DB’s “toxicity” is SD themselves and their inability to satisfy anybody with their shitty patches.
Again, all these other “important announcements” like melee weapon skins? Just noise. This notion that you can manage to thread a middle line is clearly not realistic and is just upsetting the playerbase.
The alternative is to fork DB into two separate games, one catered toward good players who want to play a good game, and one catered toward garbos who are just looking for a spruced up F2P CoD.
