About "RO2 Dying"

[melipone]

That pretty much gets at the point I was trying to make earlier re: striking the balance between RO:Ost and the COD/BF style of gameplay -- and failing to do so.

Personally I feel they could have made the game more appealing to different audiences but they went about doing it in the wrong way.

They could have had progression, achievements, single player, tutorials, a "relaxed realism" mode, fancy presentation, marketing that appeals to "normal" FPS games (the image of the guy with a assault rifle is very good), change of language used (they didn't need to mention "realism" at all if they wanted) less "clunky" movement, (easier to navigate without getting stuck on stuff etc), easier controls, more active environment with a noisy battlefield and players shouting, and whatever else they could have come up with. Those things by themselves would have made the game more suitable for a mainstream audience.

The unlocks should have been more about side grades or cosmetic changes though. Putting in physical improvements to your characters stats as well as improved weaponry was not necessary. You can do progression without it being as invasive as that. I don't want that stuff on my mind when I play, but I think it would be OK to unlock a different wood texture for a stock, get something new on my uniform or whatever, something that stayed in keeping with the theme of the game. As they released it they lost all WW2 Stalingrad credibility with no drum mags for ppsh's, MP40-2's, Mkv's etc. It was just the completely wrong way to go about unlocks and progression.

Gone on a bit of a tangent, but they could have pulled people in with the changes I mentioned in the first paragraph. The core of the gameplay should have been more in line with what people expected for an RO game however. They should have tried their damnedest to keep their loyal fanbase on their side, as theres nothing worse for newcomers than for a sequel that gets panned by the original fan base. The standard game mode should have been what they call realism mode now, not a secondary game mode. Communication from devs should have been more clear before the game released about stuff like Mkbs, and when they spoke on the forum post release they should have been less dismissive, defensive or give the wrong impression about how they feel about the importance of their forum community (0.01% thing was a blunder in particular).

The guns should have felt difficult to use, wounds should have felt like you actually got shot, movement should have been tactical etc. If they wanted to move away from bolt action rifles they should have made the game more tactical or difficult in other ways to support that. Instead they did the opposite and put in autos everywhere and dumbed down the actual game mechanics at the same time with easier shots, zoom, bandaging, no sway, breath control etc. If they didn't want RO2 to actually be a sequel to their first commercial release of an RO game then they should have called it Heroes Of Stalingrad and dropped the RO part. Then they might have found it easier to build a new fanbase if they wanted to move away from RO gameplay

 

[luciferintears]

i knew there was something wrong with the game the minute i saw the picture of the german guy holding the mkb42 equipped with a bayonet and scope.

 

[Nazarov]

i knew there was something wrong with the game the minute i saw the picture of the german guy holding the mkb42 equipped with a bayonet and scope.

I thought it was a new Jin-Roh game.
It might as well be? lol

 

[luciferintears]

I thought it was a new Jin-Roh game.
It might as well be? lol

HAHA!

i totally forgot about jin-roh. it bears an uncanny resemblance lol

 

[SQBsam]

Frankly I am of the opinion that bandaging and slow death are kinda out of place too. It just seems like a rifle shot should, you know, kill, not require an enemy to spend a half a second wrapping a wound. These "features" have been detrimental to the overall realism of the game, and, while I admire TWIs attempts to include these "interesting" things, they just haven't been needed in the game.

Thanks for the post though, its good to hear from you guys. I don't think this game will die so easily, the problem is it lacks the scale to compete with bf3, and lacks the realism to fill in the RO niche. It won't require too much work to start introducing new features (pulling in new and old) and increase that realism (bringing back RO players).

 

[Skitsur]

+1 to amerikaners post.

I like the game a lot as it is, but it could be a lot better, and it wouldn't take very radical changes to achieve that.

On the whole I feel that TWI went in the right direction when they changed the gameplay (faster movement, easier to handle weapons etc). Though I feel the gameplay isn't quite al dente enough, if you know what I mean.

Really looking forward to the mods, but hopefully there will be some mods which will try to end up somewhere between RO1 and RO2 instead of making the game mostly like RO1.

-Sway is fine, we could have a little bit more though. What is not fine is that sway doesn't suffer any significant impact from stamina, suppression and wounds.

I agree.

(0.01% thing was a blunder in particular).

Why? It's true, isn't it?

 

[gautrek]

Right now, if I had to present RO2 to a friend or a colleague, I wouldn't recommend it (I did recommended RO1 for its effort in having a tactical realism gameplay, bought a second license so my brother could co-op with me online, and bought another license for a friend who wanted to try). ...I didn't even talked about RO2 with my IRL friends, why talking about a disappointment ?

My RL mates ask me how RO2 is going.I'm afraid my stock answer now is its sh1te.I then proceed to explain all its(as I see them faults),bearing in mind that a few of them played Roost.So they are have not the slightest intent in buying the game.
So for a team who need money to survive then TWI are doing a pretty poor job of growing their product with the shocking state of the game and its core game play.

TWI need to decide who they want to play (if its not too late anyway) and then make the game to suit those target players.If they want to carry on with it in its current state then I'm out of here.I don't want a dumbed down RO.I want a tense strategic slower paced FPS.
I can live with some of the bugs for now.But the sheer speed of the game is wrong added to the laser like aiming of the guns and its a game breaker for me.

 

[rechz]

From my experience in ROOST:

rifle bullet to head/torso/back = always instant death

rifle bullet to hands = losing weapon

rifle bullet to arms = instant death/losing weapon

rifle bullet to feet/legs = instant death/slowing down to 0 speed for 5-6 seconds or more

2 rifle bullets in different spots usually always scored a kill.

pistol bullet had less chance to kill in 1 hit, but 2 bullets in the same spot always killed.

In RO2:

rifle bullet to head: instant death

rifle bullet to torso: 50% instant death/slow death 50% bandage

rifle bullet to hands/arms: bandage

rifle bullet to legs/feet: bandage

pistol bullet to head: instant death

pistol bullet to torso: nothing/bandage/slow death

everything else is bandage or no effect,

also two bullets in the same spot don't kill, it's just another bandage.

considering being hit gives you 5-6 before you can die, and you have NO PENALTIES (and this is a shame tripwire, a shame) you can run, sprint, aim, as if nothing happened, I don't see what would be the difference between health bar or bandage system.

This needs to be fixed.

 

[Bulletbeast]

The game is what we thought it would be... and I just calculated that Zetsumei averages about 5 posts per day over a 6 year period.

 

[Homuth]

The game is what we thought it would be... and I just calculated that Zetsumei averages about 5 posts per day over a 6 year period.

...And that is? A trap perhaps?

I know someone who makes roughly 14 post a day over a 4 month period. I beat you on that one.

 

[DAT]

I am waiting for this thread to die......

 

[wahoo4]

I don't know why people are being so harsh about the game. I simply love it and I've had no issues running everything on max settings. No video lag or anything. I know it would help sales if TWI would get the game into the hands of retail stores like Wal-Mart or Best Buy stores. Many people I know want a retail version, but it's hard to find a copy in my area.

Personally, I've held off waiting for many of my friends to get it this Christmas. I know TWI will get this game all "Fixed" up before that time. lol

The weapon accuracies and having to hit another button to zoom in relaxed realism throws me off. Other than that, the mechanics are great. On the part of many clans I know they have abandoned it due to bugs, low frame rates, it's not COD run and gun. Also one big complaint is no game traditional game types like FFA and S&D, but I hope a mod will change that sometime soon. I think the game looks beautiful and the sounds are great! Good job TWI.

 

[Gary 17]

I like more relaxed realism than hardcore, not much players on relaxed servers lately... all I have time for is just few quick and fun matches and all I get from hardcore is frustration due lack of advancement and occasionally happycamperspawnrapetankers cause me to quit the game. I play it but I don't like it much sometimes... maybe after few new maps, tanks and/or mods RO2 is something I could use my limited resources of time.
Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad is GREAT GAME.

 

[Apos]

I like more relaxed realism than hardcore, not much players on relaxed servers lately... all I have time for is just few quick and fun matches and all I get from hardcore is frustration due lack of advancement and occasionally happycamperspawnrapetankers cause me to quit the game. I play it but I don't like it much sometimes... maybe after few new maps, tanks and/or mods RO2 is something I could use my limited resources of time.
Red Orchestra: Heroes of Stalingrad is GREAT GAME.

Sorry, but the only difference between relaxed realism and normal mode is in HUD, nothing more. So "happycamperspawnrapetankers" can appear in every gamemode and that's team or map design fault, not game type.

 

[Rak]

So I checked the Steam Stats page after 3 weeks and the numbers came down from 2500'ish to 1000. That's nearly as much as RO1 had before the months of RO2's release. Indeed, most successfull launch ever TWI.

Temporary's post IMO explains the situation plainly. Without the core playerbase you can update the game as much as you want, it won't work. It worked with RO1 and KF because those games had a distinct character and captured a reasonably loyal fanbase, my experience with RO2 is that it's all over the place. There has been countless posts as to why it is(mine and others), so I won't repeat it again.

Too bad you've turned away the complaining %0.001 and the target audience of %99.999 is already getting bored/tired of RO2 and moving on to other games. IMO the only solution for a comeback is to give us a game mode in the true spirit of RO1, and maybe fire your current "design team".

 

[Apos]

So I checked the Steam Stats page after 3 weeks and the numbers came down from 2500'ish to 1000. That's nearly as much as RO1 had before the months of RO2's release. Indeed, most successfull launch ever TWI. (...)

You are right. There will be even less players when all RO2 tournaments and cups (Scorched Earth, ROL opening Cup, some ESL national cups) end.

 

[Imperial Dane]

@Rak: Might i recommend that you gain a bit of reading comprehension ? Succesfull launch and then whatever happens afterwards .. well that happens afterwards. Red Orchestra 2 went off quite spectacularly. And gave TWI a lot of cash to play with. That people then went off to other shooters like say.. battlefield 3 or Modern warfare 3 with much bigger budgets plus others were scared off by all the bugs and others were probably expecting the 25th coming of Christ.

But that's unrelated to the launch. The launch is a specific event. It doesn't matter if it goes Titanic, that's just a tragic end to what was a beatiful venture with such a promising start...

But we're not even seeing that yet are we ? There's still plenty of time for things to be turned around.. In particular with all that lovely money that dropped into TWI's pocket.

Though something tells me looking through all this and having noted a bunch of other threads that it doesn't really matter.

It all comes down to some people overstating their own importance in terms of the greater market and then blaming TWI for it instead of just looking at other factors.. Like the huge mess of bugs, the fact that for most new players to the whole RO thing.. Ro2 would still be quite daunting and thus went off to play things like BF3 and MW3.

Yet no, clearly it must be because RO2 wasn't enough like RO1.. despite the probable fact that more people bought RO2 than ever bought RO1.

I applaud TWI's determination to stick to the course and not listening to the backseat drivers in this case.

 

[SchabeOink]

i knew there was something wrong with the game the minute i saw the picture of the german guy holding the mkb42 equipped with a bayonet and scope.

Back then that raised my eyebrow aswell.

Looking at these threads here, here and here discussing RO2s box art with hindsight makes an arkward read.

EDIT: Linked one more thread from the past

 

[Colt .45 killer]

So I checked the Steam Stats page after 3 weeks and the numbers came down from 2500'ish to 1000. That's nearly as much as RO1 had before the months of RO2's release. Indeed, most successfull launch ever TWI.

Temporary's post IMO explains the situation plainly. Without the core playerbase you can update the game as much as you want, it won't work. It worked with RO1 and KF because those games had a distinct character and captured a reasonably loyal fanbase, my experience with RO2 is that it's all over the place. There has been countless posts as to why it is(mine and others), so I won't repeat it again.

Too bad you've turned away the complaining %0.001 and the target audience of %99.999 is already getting bored/tired of RO2 and moving on to other games. IMO the only solution for a comeback is to give us a game mode in the true spirit of RO1, and maybe fire your current "design team".

Psst. I'd bet you a fiver that "design team" is code for orders from Ramm himself.

 

[CMK]

Hey Idiots who work at TWI

This is why you don't release an incomplete product. I have better luck buying stuff from IKEA