Really? This is the final build?

[pApA^LeGBa]

48 minutes ago, Roland said:

I never said you shouldn’t give bad reviews for devs putting out an unfinished game. I just said that it won’t change anything. People will still buy them in droves glad to have them sooner rather than later. 
 

Nothing is going to stop this train—not even the supernatural power of bad reviews. You can spend your days being bitter and angry and boycotting games or you can go with it and either buy the rough early adopter version or the refined version a year later. Either way it’s going to continue. 

 

What is it with this black and white thinking? I can just not like something without being bitter and angry. Maybe try that sometimes?

 

The number of people not buying this kind of games anymore and rather waiting for a sale, best as a bundle with DLC`s, get´s more and more daily.  Devs who act like that will be left with a crowd of early buyers that have the attention span of a gold fish and no patience at all after a while. That is surely your favorite type of poster as a mod. Am i right?

 

 

[Roland]

31 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

 

What is it with this black and white thinking? I can just not like something without being bitter and angry. Maybe try that sometimes?

It’s the tenor of your posts for the last couple of years. When you post negativity for years it comes off as pretty bitter. Leaving a bad review and moving on and just not liking something, I agree— not bitter. Hanging out in a forum for years to go on and on repeating the same complaints way past the point where changes are going to happen— bitter. 

 

31 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

The number of people not buying this kind of games anymore and rather waiting for a sale, best as a bundle with DLC`s, get´s more and more daily.  Devs who act like that will be left with a crowd of early buyers that have the attention span of a gold fish and no patience at all after a while. That is surely your favorite type of poster as a mod. Am i right?

Bitter. 
 

No worries Dude. We just disagree on how detrimental this shift is to the industry and how impactful consumers can be to prevent the shift from continuing. Maybe there will be a correction but if so it will be because the players in the industry determine that they need to change in order to be successful. It won’t be because some players of the games leave bad reviews. 

Edited August 30 by Roland (see edit history)

[pApA^LeGBa]

 @Roland Surely you can read me like an open book via posts in a forum that i don´t write in my native language.

 

Anyways, it has started as a few players leaving bad reviews. But they still bought games at release. But that changed. Like i said, there is more and more people who won´t buy any game at release anymore, no matter the history of the developers. (CP2077 was kind of a turning point for that) And that number is growing faster every year.  Reviews might not be the solution. But decreasing sales do work.

Edited August 30 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history)

[theFlu]

23 minutes ago, Roland said:

but if so it will be because the players in the industry determine that they need to change in order to be successful. It won’t be because some players of the games leave bad reviews. 

How do you think the industry players make decisions?

Some make them bottom-line first, which leads to, yay lootboxes. Cool, not having part of that.

Some do their decisions advised by SBI and such, just to obtain funding. Cool, not having any part of that either.

Some, especially indies, can actually afford to make their decisions quality first; "we'll make the game we want". TFP can be in this camp, and largely has been; but this move is pretty purely bottom-line first. Wouldn't want any part of that, and they deserve the flak.

 

The two first groups are a lost cause. The third group will always exist, and advocating for their continued existence is imo a good thing - even when you have to @%$# at a studio you like to do so. But this is literally "gamers leaving bad reviews", or in other words, voicing our concerns.

[meganoth]

6 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

@RipClaw I don´t know FarCry nailed it pretty good, with enemies trying to sneak t behind you for example. Ofc it is not a functioning brain like a human enemy. But this is 7 days and compared to zombies they do hopefully have a kinda functioning brain. Otherwise they are utterly useless.

 

Isn't this black or white thinking? "Either they have a good AI, then it will be a gamechanger. Otherwise they will be utterly useless."

 

We already have the police zombie, so we have ranged combat, even in groups if a few policemen are spawned together. Bandits will probably be  tougher and may need end-game characters and some adaption of tactics. So what? Ranged is ranged and if they use cover they will be a bit harder to hit, but that's it. 7D2D will never compete with a dedicated shooter in a static world where they can give the AI optimized routes to follow and give them a dedicated decision tree for each specific map so they really feel intelligent. I don't know if FarCry does that, but if you are impressed by that AI I would bet they did.

 

I don't doubt that I will like bandits. They are surely something new in end-game once all POIs are easy mode. They will extend the game in a natural fashion, because they are tougher and ranged. They might make the sniper rifle fashionable again.

 

Edited August 30 by meganoth (see edit history)

[pApA^LeGBa]

@meganoth Calling the police man ranged combat? He is a spitter. You see and hear him before he spits. That is nothing like actual ranged combat. Ranged isn´t ranged. You really want to compare a mindless zombie and a human NPC with guns and say they are the same threat level?

 

Like said, if they aren´t any smarter than zombies, they better keep them out of the game. They should take cover, they should make sure you don´t hear or see them before they shoot. they need to have better path finding and not hit a wall right nexts to a open door. Also bullets should do more damage than spitting. (depending on the caliber ofc) If you think that is the same as a police zombie spitting, we can end this discussion right now.

 

There is a huge difference between black and white thinking about a person and about a game mechanic. But you know that very well.

 

 

Edited August 30 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history)

[Riamus]

3 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

@meganoth Calling the police man ranged combat? He is a spitter. You see and hear him before he spits. That is nothing like actual ranged combat. Ranged isn´t ranged. You really want to compare a mindless zombie and a human NPC with guns and say they are the same threat level?

 

Like said, if they aren´t any smarter than zombies, they better keep them out of the game. They should take cover, they should make sure you don´t hear or see them before they shoot. they need to have better path finding and not hit a wall right nexts to a open door. Also bullets should do more damage than spitting. (depending on the caliber ofc) If you think that is the same as a police zombie spitting, we can end this discussion right now.

 

There is a huge difference between black and white thinking about a person and about a game mechanic. But you know that very well.

 

 

I think you will be disappointed.  I expect them to take cover, but I didn't expect better pathing or better AI.  I really don't think I will like having bandits in the game.  Hopefully I am wrong and do enjoy them, but I really don't think so.  I play this game for the zombies.  If I want to fight regular humans, I'll choose a different game.  I hope there will be options to disable bandits, disable story, disable trader biome progression, etc. without having to resort to mods.

[pApA^LeGBa]

@Riamus If taking cover will be the only thing they do better than a zombie, then why are they postponed so often? It can´t be that hard to make them seek cover, it´s not like that it is a new revolutionary feature that no one has ever done before. That would be highly embarrassing tbh if the only difference is them taking cover.

 

 

[YourMirror]

12 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

@Riamus If taking cover will be the only thing they do better than a zombie, then why are they postponed so often? It can´t be that hard to make them seek cover, it´s not like that it is a new revolutionary feature that no one has ever done before. That would be highly embarrassing tbh if the only difference is them taking cover.

 

 

Biiter

14 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

 @Roland Surely you can read me like an open book via posts in a forum that i don´t write in my native language.

 

Anyways, it has started as a few players leaving bad reviews. But they still bought games at release. But that changed. Like i said, there is more and more people who won´t buy any game at release anymore, no matter the history of the developers. (CP2077 was kind of a turning point for that) And that number is growing faster every year.  Reviews might not be the solution. But decreasing sales do work.

Bitter

[pApA^LeGBa]

It would be nice if we could stick to the topic here and not discuss other peoples feelings, especially the mod team shouldn´t do that.

[YourMirror]

15 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

 

What is it with this black and white thinking? I can just not like something without being bitter and angry. Maybe try that sometimes?

 

The number of people not buying this kind of games anymore and rather waiting for a sale, best as a bundle with DLC`s, get´s more and more daily.  Devs who act like that will be left with a crowd of early buyers that have the attention span of a gold fish and no patience at all after a while. That is surely your favorite type of poster as a mod. Am i right?

 

 

Bitter

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

@Riamus If taking cover will be the only thing they do better than a zombie, then why are they postponed so often? It can´t be that hard to make them seek cover, it´s not like that it is a new revolutionary feature that no one has ever done before. That would be highly embarrassing tbh if the only difference is them taking cover.

 

 

 

Not a new feature but you see it in games where the map designer can mark every point of a fixed map with information for which directions it provides cover. In this game the AI has to dynamically search around for places that would provide cover, and try to do that very efficiently because if you have 8 bandits in different locations against you, each one of them needs to do this calculation.

 

I think someone from TFP once said the AI overhaul of A17 was also done to get an AI that could be tuned to different levels of "intelligence". So you will get the current AI, cranked up to how it was in early A17, with some refinements and embellishments like the search for cover, but I doubt it will be on a level that you won't recognize it anymore. 

 

 

[meganoth]

The game still has to work for novice players and players not used to pure shooters. The bandits will surely be much harder and dangerous than a cop. But the tactics against them may very well be the same, especially in POIs where ranged has disadvantages. But for example their first shot will probably be a sure miss, or they will make sounds that reveal them, or ... I can't imagine them to be bots that kill you if they get the first shot, unless you play on insane maybe.

 

Edited August 31 by meganoth (see edit history)

[pApA^LeGBa]

So bandits should only be a threat to new players. In this case i hope we can disable them, if they aren´t challenging at all, they are just another sourcde for bugs and lag.

 

I can understand that approach for a game that isn´t early access or has a way shorter early access phase. But in this game the majority of the active player base is experienced in the game. And that won´t change. There will be even more experienced players at the end of next year.

Edited August 31 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history)

[InfiniteWarrior]

19 hours ago, theFlu said:

this move [on TFP's part] is pretty purely bottom-line first.

This is the part that's being assumed automatically. And you know what they say about assuming: "It makes an a** of u and me."  I can't quite fathom why this is being assumed. Is it because we just so happen to live, move and have our being in a fishbowl of institutionalized greed, ill-will and delusion ruining everything in the ocean, including the video games that were once just a fun and interesting hobby to engage in whereas now the industry at large has joined the psyops...er, I mean, "social engineering"...brigade intent on preying on the vulnerable in the name of profit?

Personally, I can't assume ill-intent from a small outfit like TFP without evidence and I see no evidence of it in this case. TFP lost the console publishing rights to their own game; went through a veritable nightmare to get them back; and are now syncing the PC and console versions of a work in progress. That's it from my perspective. I hope they learned some valuable lessons along the way because it's pretty obvious to me, at least, that they're learning this stuff as they go. Why should I assume this was done "purely" from a selfish profit motive when the game itself is designed around community and the "old school" (at least, to date) way of doing things, including having the game run on community servers as it was not so long ago before the "live service," centralize everything bug bit both the software and video game industries? Now, guaranteed, if they go the "paid DLC" (that turns out to be recolored and/or repurposed assets like models and skins, etc.) route, I'll start to seriously wonder about their motives myself. Such may be the "acceptable" way to "monetize" a game in an ongoing fashion to many, but not to me who is strictly of the make a tangible product, sell the tangible product school of above board business practices.

That's why I say they might just wrap this one up and move on to something new. Wouldn't that be fun? I have to wonder if there isn't a bit of burnout going on at TFP, having worked on the exact same project for ten plus years. I experienced that myself when a former boss started an online endeavor, then refused to sell it, stuck in the "if you buld it, they will come" mentality, and wondered why it wasn't going anywhere. I told his Dad the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, but the family business had invested roughly a million bucks in it and felt they literally couldn't let it go. Don't let this happen to you.

Edited August 31 by InfiniteWarrior (see edit history)

[Mister Forgash]

Every other enemy in the game makes some kind of noise to alert us of their presence before we engage, I imagine bandits wont be different in that capacity. I hope the AI is good, but the fact that the environment in this game isn't static has left me with very low expectations of what we'll get.. I'll be very happy if they try to take cover, but can't help but think it's going to feel more like playing Keep Away with guns.. If the bandits are smart enough to use squad tactics like one laying out suppressing fire while another tries to flank your position, I'll be very, very surprised.

[doughphunghus]

16 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

Also bullets should do more damage than spitting. (depending on the caliber ofc

I hope so, and i kinda want "same damage as the bullets i have" as we are all using the same bullets/caliber. Of course generally same "base damage" and not with all the perks i have. Of course: no one wants to be 1 shot killed without some warning/ability to dodge so hopefully if they have 1 shot capability (like a major rare boss?) you will get a "laser sight effect" on you (your vision) for a sec or similar warning.

 

i shouldn't get hit with, say, an arrow and take 5 dmg and then turn around and shoot with the same arrow and do 45 dmg

[theFlu]

4 hours ago, InfiniteWarrior said:

This is the part that's being assumed automatically.

Well, it ain't "quality first", that would require bandits for a full release, and those need an alpha or two... If it ain't quality first, the next best thing I have to offer is "profit first" - note that I don't hate people making profit. Anything else, like incompetence or malevolence would be worse in my eyes (I don't pretend to know how this could be a "malicious" decision, just an example..)

 

In short, I'm just assuming the least worse of the options... and you have provided me nothing that could actually improve on that, no?

[InfiniteWarrior]

11 minutes ago, theFlu said:

In short, I'm just assuming the least worse of the options... and you have provided me nothing that could actually improve on that, no?

You're speculating. What could anyone possibly offer you to aid your imaginative speculations? I'd just be aware, when speculating, that even imagination has its dark side as is fairly obvious in the Utopian vs. Dystopian visions of the future found in our speculative and science fiction. If it's true that we create the reality we know, we might want to be careful with our imaginations lest they get the better of and run away with us.

I've said what it looks like from my perspective. My question would be: why does it have to be any more than that?

Edited August 31 by InfiniteWarrior (see edit history)

[theFlu]

2 minutes ago, InfiniteWarrior said:

You're speculating.

You think I'm real? Everything you think is "speculating".

 

3 minutes ago, InfiniteWarrior said:

What could anyone possibly offer you

A statement of the reasoning from TFP would go decently far to convince me otherwise, depending a little on how much it smells like BS. A link to such would be of similar effect, in case we can assume you're not TFP.

An undeniably logical explanation by anyone could convince me.

There are plenty of ways to change my mind about things. Saying a magic word "speculation!" isn't going to add to my knowledge and thus not be able change my mind here in any way. I'm not expecting to have my mind changed, but pointing out "thinking is speculation" is completely pointless, we know.

[InfiniteWarrior]

5 minutes ago, theFlu said:

Everything you think is "speculating".

It isn't, actually. Speculating is posing a question and providing the question an answer (or not) all by your little lonesome. That's why it falls into the realm of imagination as opposed to reason -- Los' realm as opposed to Urizen's to gratuitously reference William Blake on the subject. In fact, that's much of the problem with the modern world. It serves Urizen exclusively to the other three Zoas and certainly not "God" as some would hope.

[theFlu]

1 minute ago, InfiniteWarrior said:

It serves Urizen exclusively

What is the logical proof for the existence of Urizen; and why on earth are we discussing it? You hiring disciples? Take the next call, I ain't joining.

[InfiniteWarrior]

@theFlu: I'd consult writers such as John Ralston Saul for the "logical proof" you seek. His book, Voltaire's @%$#s: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West' is particularly good at revealing it. Barring that, I'd suggest consulting one's self because the fact that our world serves "Urizen" exclusively is the unvarnished truth. And "Urizen" is, of course, a fictional personification of the human faculty to reason.

 

 

 

Edited August 31 by InfiniteWarrior (see edit history)

[theFlu]

40 minutes ago, InfiniteWarrior said:

a fictional personification of the human faculty to reason.

So, somehow me assuming motives of TFP for a weird little change is wrong, but "the entire world serving a fictional character" doesn't contain anything potentially assumptive at all...? I ask a question, and your answer is "read the collective works of a 77 year-old philosopher". I'm not even trying to be hostile, but sweet j-bus, if you have a point, make it without referencing obscure religious dogma that'd take a decade to grok for an outsider.

Edited August 31 by theFlu (see edit history)

[InfiniteWarrior]

1 minute ago, theFlu said:

So, somehow me assuming motives of TFP for a weird little change is wrong

Did I say it was wrong? No. I said my question would be why does it have to be more than "TFP lost the console publishing rights to their own game; went through a veritable nightmare to get them back; and are now syncing the PC and console versions of a work in progress." Why does it have to be any more than that?