Full-Priced Multiplayer Shooters Must Change, or Die

[Kameburger]

I think there are a lot of things that get lost when trying to sell something like this. I think Battlefront is a well put together game by the sum of it's parts. When I enjoy it, I really enjoy it. At the end of the day, there isn't enough content to keep me busy, and even the content I can achieve in game is such a grind, and it forces me to grind on the same levels over and over and over again, and then when you get the things you're grinding for it's ultimately disappointing because it's not that great, and it can't be cause it would totally screw up the game balance. The best way I would describe the business model is like Chucky Cheese's. You play a bunch of different games over and over and over again for tickets and when you get enough tickets you trade them in for colorful yet ultimately cheap plastic prizes. There is a reason adults needed alcohol to make that work like with Dave and Busters.

I don't know why but Star Wars battlefront seemed to want to completely ignore any kind of competitive scene. There is no real way to compete. You could be the best Battlefront player on the planet and who would know? The modes and interface and way of interacting with players is designed to be so impersonal, that when you go into a room by without any of your friends you might as well be playing against bots for as much interaction as there is. You can't create a room choose teams and play with your friends. There are no tournaments or leagues. There is literally no engagement. It's multiplayer in name only for the most part. Combine that with the piss poor lack of content and all the players who didn't shell out 110+ dollars for the extras and you're left with an experience that is assured death.

In fact it seems that they've gone out of the way to kill off excitement. With every other news story about the game centering around what you won't be getting in future DLC, you're all but promised a future where you will have to buy a Battlefront 2 along with another 50+ dollar season pass, that gives you the force awakens content just in time for the rouge one release later this year.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

All of those charts are for physical copies only. The vast majority of PC purchases are digital downloads.

With stories like this [http://gamerant.com/the-witcher-3-sales-pc-consoles-125/], it seems to blow a hole in that logic.

And we're talking CD Projekt, a company with a focus on PC gaming that pushes digital distribution.

Sorry, just wanted to point out you may have hit a glitch somewhere, you quoted me wrongly, that quote is actually attributed to Mr. Bogos (Post #16)

 

[Valkrex]

Still playing Evolve. Still enjoying it. Getting a ton of time and fun out of the paid DLC (ya know, DLC that doesn't split the community and adds MASSIVE shifts in how each match is played) and enjoying the rather large amount of free content, free maps, free characters, and tons of free skins they've given out since launch. Keep on hating, but its one of my favorite games from 2015 and at 500 hours I've certainly gotten my money's worth out of it and there's still a lot more free content on the way.

Not to mention that Evolve was one of the only AAA games lately to actually try something NEW and make it fun as hell.

 

[Valkrex]

I'd chalk Evolve failing up to an incredibly bizarre poor focus on their part. The game didn't really lack content at launch. the quality of the content and implementation of their ideas had some questionable merits of course. There were clear hiccups (the Wraith being nigh uncatchable for instance, until a much later patch, despite the problem being known when Wraith was in the beta) in the formula, but the content was there.

The thing was, they shot themselves in the foot before they even launched, with all the cosmetic launch-day DLC. That clearly said in big letters that they would rather put out the fast cash junk rather then fix the current game issues, or complete the fourth monster/hunter group for the initial game. If they'd launched with some of the gameplay tweaks that later came down the pipe, and the extra set of playables, rather then a store full of tint-filtered weapon skins, they might've held onto some player goodwill.

You do know that different groups of people handle different things in game production right? Artists need shit to do, and they made the cosmetic stuff without taking away time or resources from the programmers who were working on the rest of the game. The art department does not do the coding, and vice versa. I really don't understand how an abundance of optional cosmetic content created by another department means resources were diverted away from debugging...

As for the timeliness of patches that's a whole other matter... my biggest criticism of the game actually is how slow updates are.

 

[sXeth]

You do know that different groups of people handle different things in game production right? Artists need shit to do, and they made the cosmetic stuff without taking away time or resources from the programmers who were working on the rest of the game. The art department does not do the coding, and vice versa. I really don't understand how an abundance of optional cosmetic content created by another department means resources were diverted away from debugging...

As for the timeliness of patches that's a whole other matter... my biggest criticism of the game actually is how slow updates are.

You do understand the fundamental concept of paying people money from the same company pool, right? If you weren't paying the art department to churn out cosmetic fluff (overpriced and mediocre cosmetic fluff, by the by), you can hire/overtime extra programming work? Maybe they weren't "diverted away", but they sure weren't putting anything into it.


Even if you want to department-excuse it out. It doesn't matter from a marketing standpoint. Public perception is not going to bend to your potential explanation, and launch out with issues known from months earlier in the Beta, and gigantic DLC packs instead of patches, and the public will turn on you.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Still playing Evolve. Still enjoying it. Getting a ton of time and fun out of the paid DLC (ya know, DLC that doesn't split the community and adds MASSIVE shifts in how each match is played) and enjoying the rather large amount of free content, free maps, free characters, and tons of free skins they've given out since launch. Keep on hating, but its one of my favorite games from 2015 and at 500 hours I've certainly gotten my money's worth out of it and there's still a lot more free content on the way.

Not to mention that Evolve was one of the only AAA games lately to actually try something NEW and make it fun as hell.

I totally agree that Evolve was one of the better games of 2015 and a refreshing take on competitive multiplayer. As I mentioned above, I think the main reason it failed was because the glaring issues in game balance weren't sorted out quickly enough (Wraith's being able to avoid combat way too easily even when domed) and it led to people quitting out of frustration. It was what happened to me and the people I played with, we loved matches against Krakens, Goliaths and that rolling dude (Leviathan?) but most match ups were against Wraiths that would simply kite for 20 minutes no matter how well we played. Even when we won, the final showdown was preceded by some 15 minutes of just running in circles because it was nigh impossible to catch up with the Wraith.

When the Wraith was finally nerfed into not being a troll's delight most of my friends had already quit playing and had moved on to other games.

 

[Something Amyss]

Sorry, just wanted to point out you may have hit a glitch somewhere, you quoted me wrongly, that quote is actually attributed to Mr. Bogos (Post #16)

Weird, since I clicked the box for Steve and pared down the quote from within the text. Like, sometimes I mis-click or something, but this has to be a system thing.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Valkrex]

You do know that different groups of people handle different things in game production right? Artists need shit to do, and they made the cosmetic stuff without taking away time or resources from the programmers who were working on the rest of the game. The art department does not do the coding, and vice versa. I really don't understand how an abundance of optional cosmetic content created by another department means resources were diverted away from debugging...

As for the timeliness of patches that's a whole other matter... my biggest criticism of the game actually is how slow updates are.

You do understand the fundamental concept of paying people money from the same company pool, right? If you weren't paying the art department to churn out cosmetic fluff (overpriced and mediocre cosmetic fluff, by the by), you can hire/overtime extra programming work? Maybe they weren't "diverted away", but they sure weren't putting anything into it.


Even if you want to department-excuse it out. It doesn't matter from a marketing standpoint. Public perception is not going to bend to your potential explanation, and launch out with issues known from months earlier in the Beta, and gigantic DLC packs instead of patches, and the public will turn on you.

No, the "department excuse" as you put it is just a fact of software and game development. I know this from personal experience in software development, you divide the work into teams of different specializations and don't expect one department to do another's job. That's just how this shit works.

If they didn't have the budget to hire more programmers should they have just fired their art department? Hell no. That's a terrible idea, and will lead to the death of a game studio when word gets around that artists just get fired right when the game's finished. No artist would want to work for them, and its not like completely optional content made after the game went "gold" is actually harmful.

Gigantic DLC packs? Yea there were DLC packs, and they were marketed horribly. Yes the marketing for Evolve was awful, agreed there, but when you actually LOOK at the DLC on offer, its no more egregious then any recent CoD game, and even then its not as bad since the DLC on offer doesn't split the community, and you can play with people who do have the DLC you don't and not be at a disadvantage. Unlike most recent multiplayer games where you need to buy every little piece of DLC in order to even play the game online.

And since release, a thing that almost no one who doesn't play the game knows about, is that there has been a rather large amount of free content given out in terms of maps, modes, hunters, monsters, and bi-weekly skin challenges.

Did they fuck up public perception? Yes, 2K really needs to work on their marketing. Its garbage. Did they actually rip people off with the worst DLC practices ever made? No. The game's definitely not above criticism, it definitely deserves some of what it got, but when compared to other games I'm just baffled at the outrage Evolve gets when others have more egregious DLC practices and get off scott free.

 

[Valkrex]

Still playing Evolve. Still enjoying it. Getting a ton of time and fun out of the paid DLC (ya know, DLC that doesn't split the community and adds MASSIVE shifts in how each match is played) and enjoying the rather large amount of free content, free maps, free characters, and tons of free skins they've given out since launch. Keep on hating, but its one of my favorite games from 2015 and at 500 hours I've certainly gotten my money's worth out of it and there's still a lot more free content on the way.

Not to mention that Evolve was one of the only AAA games lately to actually try something NEW and make it fun as hell.

I totally agree that Evolve was one of the better games of 2015 and a refreshing take on competitive multiplayer. As I mentioned above, I think the main reason it failed was because the glaring issues in game balance weren't sorted out quickly enough (Wraith's being able to avoid combat way too easily even when domed) and it led to people quitting out of frustration. It was what happened to me and the people I played with, we loved matches against Krakens, Goliaths and that rolling dude (Leviathan?) but most match ups were against Wraiths that would simply kite for 20 minutes no matter how well we played. Even when we won, the final showdown was preceded by some 15 minutes of just running in circles because it was nigh impossible to catch up with the Wraith.

When the Wraith was finally nerfed into not being a troll's delight most of my friends had already quit playing and had moved on to other games.

Yea. My biggest issue with Evolve is how long it takes them to update the game, especially when there's an imbalance as large as launch-era Wraith. Lately though, each patch has had a HUGE amount of stuff in it, ranging from fixes to balance updates to free content, and the game's better then ever right now.

Just takes too long between updates... easily my biggest criticism of Evolve is the update schedule.