About "RO2 Dying"

[monster]

It is very good that the SDK is coming along. The community may yet save this game.

lul- I'm not even sure my posts appear anymore, but here goes:

... pushing the envelope on both gameplay...

One has to wonder about this statement. From the view of a 15 yr online gaming veteran, RO2 doesn't push any envelopes:

SHOWING ENEMY LOCATIONS ON THE MAPS: Tired gaming method offering scripted win scenarios to players. It is a solid copy of what the other games are doing, and leaves no challenge to the player.

SPAWNING WITH ENEMY WEAPONS: Another tired carrot for players, and ahistorical. To boot, it makes it much harder to play as a cohesive team when incoming audio indicates an enemy is firing nearby.

LEVELING: Tired gaming method of baiting players to buy a game with the unintended consequence of alienating new players. Nothing about this pushes the envelope.

ARBITRARY AND NON-CONTEXTUAL MAP DESIGN: WW2 enthusiasts require a bit of context to the game. RO1 captured this perfectly.

WEAK STATISTICS/NO GLOBAL STATS: How many players have died by demo charge? What is the global hit percetage for the PPSH? How many wounds have I caused? The statistics system is extremely weak, if not non-existent.

NON-STLAINGRAD COMBAT PARADIGMS: Where are the flamethrowers? Where are the spreading and persistent fires? Hidden conscripts appearing behind enemy lines? Nothing about the game suggests Stalingrad combat, except for some words, uniforms, and weapon skins.

NO NEW GAMING OFFERINGS: RO2 is not pushing the envelope in any way. I challenge anyone to refute this.

There are more examples. Pointing to the release of bigger-budget games as a reason for a game's decline is denying the facts, and a poor business decision. Owners move forward, and get better. Denial leads to more games like KF (NO replayability at all), and RO2 (a joke to the RO1 legacy).

Pointing to the community to fix is appropriate though, because clearly, TWI doesn't/won't get it.

 

[melipone]

The week before BF3 came out - Peak player counts about 3,000
The days after BF3 came out - Peak player counts about 1,500

Facts are facts...

Part of the problem is that RO2 doesn't sufficiently position itself away from BF3 or MW3, or whatever mainstream game will be released. I personally will never play BF3 or MW3, and I think i'm not alone in this. You would be surprised just how many people came to RO2 looking for something different, not more of the same. They came from realism communities all over the internet and RO2 just doesn't manage to keep either realism players or arcade players happy. Its middle of the road and doesn't appeal to any particular group of players.

I like both realism and arcade, but to me RO2 has gameplay that doesn't take the best of both worlds. Its like its only trying to be realistic when it will appeal to people that won't like RO2 no matter what, and not realistic in ways that will turn realism fans away.

To me RO2 should have been released as an uncompromising RO game that cut off the fat or streamlined where necessary, but didn't lose the core of what made it appealing in the first place. I don't feel realism games should be small niches, but you grow communities by releasing solids versions of them then working on them post release, not by turning away the core audience and being almost sycophantic towards the mainstream. It must be a delicate balance, but RO2 just tries far too hard to appeal to BF/Cod audiences. It should only do that if it doesn't interfere with what makes RO worth playing

 

[Hraban]

thanks for the update !

 

[Mormegil]

Just to dig into this a bit, you are saying that you join a server with 200ms ping, then when it gets full pings go up to 400-600ms? 200ms is the upward limit of what I would consider playable for the game (and the upward limit of what we would even support). If the server's ping climbs that much the CPU is severely overloaded, or something else is wrong. On the servers we test with here in Atlanta (remote, not on our LAN) people in the office here will have pings around 65-70ms at medium load and then in the worst cases climb up to about 100ms when the server is under heavy load with 64 players. We're working to improve even this, but 400-600ms sounds like that server has a major problem.

So in essence, the hit detection problem is a limited server hardware problem. Many people suffering from this issue probably don't know they're having 600-800 ms ping, because they don't think to check "STATS NET" in the console. Maybe if people could easily see their ping in the scoreboard, like in RO1, people will stop playing on overloaded servers.

 

[Arquiteto]

Great post and great update. Can't wait for the patches and mods to start rolling in.

 

[monster]

My opinion is that the admin of this forum must take measures to
avoid the waves of whines.:IS2:

That's what happened while the game was being developed. Look what came of it.

Censoring and "minus-repping" the people who said the game is a copy of other games and going in the wrong direction were heavily censored. Look what happened- a missed opportunity to create something special, and instead a jump into the mainstream. I can see a hand flailing in that stream, but that's it.

 

[[TW]Ramm-Jaeger]

So in essence, the hit detection problem is a limited server hardware problem. Many people suffering from this issue probably don't know they're having 600-800 ms ping, because they don't think to check "STATS NET" in the console. Maybe if people could easily see their ping in the scoreboard, like in RO1, people will stop playing on overloaded servers.

You mean by say pressing "Tab" and bringing up the scoreboard and looking at your ping which you can already do in RO2 just like in RO1

 

[Major_Day]

Are you testing on LAN or something? Here is what you do.

1. Using the retail RO2 and not the Beta, join a server with reasonable ping (less than or up to 200ms is fine).
2. Get lots of friends to join until the server is at capacity. You should notice your ping jump up maybe 200-300%.
3. Do a lot of close quarters shooting. Get right behind a guy, aim at his head, and try to put a bullet into him. The bullet is much more likely to miss than it is to hit.
4. Test at various ranges. Notice that while hipshooting might be better for very close range (since more bullets means more probability that one actually registers), hitting someone up close using ironsights is a fool's game.

I realise that you're playing from Oz, and that high ping servers maybe your only choice, but playing on servers with a ping over 250?, you're lucky if you hit anything at any distance,even if the server cpu isn't overloaded.

 

[melipone]

I'm looking at the same graph you are, and I see the player counts pretty close to level and then a sharp decline starting on the day that BF3 is released.

Compare these two graphs:

The week before BF3's release, see that the peaks go up on the weekend, but are about the same day after day:

http://steamgraph.burstpixel.net/in...&jstime=1&from=1318824000000&to=1319428800000

The week of BF3's release, see a sharp dive in the peaks:

http://steamgraph.burstpixel.net/in...&jstime=1&from=1319428800000&to=1320033600000

It doesn't show much more than that the people who were playing RO2 were happy to jump to the next EA blockbuster that came along. That should never have been an issue in the first place if RO2 was released in a way that appeal to the sort of players that want a realism focussed WW2 tactical FPS

 

[Dickymint]

I just deleted my rant about not bothering to rank servers as i've moaned about it plenty but hey guys give people more feedback and read the "post here ifya servers not ranked" thread maybe once a day please....

 

[mowskwoz]

Thanks for the info Ramm. It's much appreciated, as are the long term goals for the game. I prefer this style of support over the short term gains many publishers use.

Regarding hit reg recreation (Maybe this should go into the bug section?) in a 10 man server with bots, pings between 70-90, a friend and I had several moments where he swears he shot me (mg34 full auto) while I never even saw/heard his weapon firing. It looked like he was just standing there to me. This is 5 to 10 meters away. Once in the same room. What could that indicate?

I had another moment when I fired my PPSH into a player who was melee attacking me. My gun was literally touching him, and not a hit reg'd. Maybe my gun was through him because of no collision?

I've had several instances of when it comes to hit reg sometimes.

I'll try to recreate things and video it.

Thank you again for the communication and your work. I'm enjoying the game immensely and look forward to TWI's support.

 

[Apparo89]

i have bought BF3 but i've played it only 1-2 hours.
RO2 and KF are more fun for me, so Tripwire don't listen haters you must listen feedback from the real community fans

Keep going Tripwire, you are the BEST! thanks for the great games you have made

 

[DesiQ]

I realise that you're playing from Oz, and that high ping servers maybe your only choice, but playing on servers with a ping over 250?, you're lucky if you hit anything at any distance,even if the server cpu isn't overloaded.

Ah, important thing to note: I don't join 250ms servers by choice. I join 20-150ms servers in Australia, and it is the game that inflicts 250+ upon me.

 

[dr. strangelove]

Wow this all began by somebody who couldn`t go online by a fault
by himself and then writing the game is dead. After that people take this
point and are whining further.

I live in Holland and i tell you, i can play the whole day. There
are servers enough.

My opinion is that the admin of this forum must take measures to
avoid the waves of whines.:IS2:

First off, it must be nice for you to sit at home the whole day and not have to work or go to school...get a job.

Secondly, let me tell you that people have every right to voice their opinion on this "purchased" game. "IT WAS NOT FREE" and needless to say...it was not well polished on it's release. It is now up to Tripwire to make good on this "purchased" game and to fix the problems at hand.

From a marketing perspective, Tripwire should make every effort to communicate with RO community at least once a week to on the fixes at hand.

I am in sales and this is what they call...."good customer service" for the consumers.

 

[Dickymint]

From a marketing perspective, Tripwire should make every effort to communicate with RO community at least once a week to on the fixes at hand.

I am in sales and this is what they call...."good customer service" for the consumers.

I have posted many times in the thread asking for server to be ranked and i have pm'ed them and left a message on one of there guys profile and not even a message back telling me to ^*&^&* off....... I think they should remove the Interactive bit from the Interactive Forums name to be honest as Interactive suggests a two way action

 

[JayTac]

Next we're continuing to work on polishing up the game and fixing issues. Two key things we're looking into is further reducing ping and increasing ping stability, and improving client side performance especially with higher player counts. That isn't all we are working on, but that is just a snapshot.

Thank you, this is the biggest issue for me right now, and I can personally say that I'll play the game a ton if my ping wasn't so high. I also think it might remedy some hit detection issues as well, play any game with a high ping and there's going to be hit reg problems.

 

[Nezzer]

Thanks for the info Ramm. It's much appreciated, as are the long term goals for the game. I prefer this style of support over the short term gains many publishers use.

Regarding hit reg recreation (Maybe this should go into the bug section?) in a 10 man server with bots, pings between 70-90, a friend and I had several moments where he swears he shot me (mg34 full auto) while I never even saw/heard his weapon firing. It looked like he was just standing there to me. This is 5 to 10 meters away. Once in the same room. What could that indicate?

I had another moment when I fired my PPSH into a player who was melee attacking me. My gun was literally touching him, and not a hit reg'd. Maybe my gun was through him because of no collision?

I've had several instances of when it comes to hit reg sometimes.

I'll try to recreate things and video it.

Thank you again for the communication and your work. I'm enjoying the game immensely and look forward to TWI's support.

Check my post on the previous page, that is being a bit ignored by most people

 

[Major_Day]

Ah, important thing to note: I don't join 250ms servers by choice. I join 20-150ms servers in Australia, and it is the game that inflicts 250+ upon me.

Ah i see, thanks for pointing that out, then it isn't a hit detection issue, its an overloaded server/bandwidth issue, once pings go over 250-300 on any server, hit detection accuracy goes out the window.

 

[Father Ted]

For the poster who asked what's in it for TWI to provide such long-term support. Consistent sales, word of mouth spreading. I gifted RO1 to one of my frinds only a few months before RO2 came out. He liked it and bought Killing Floor and Ro2. Just an example. EA and their likes "milk the cow" until there is no more milk and the cow dies. TWI's strategy is to keep the cow healthy and give a bit of milk every day.

What I was getting at was that I have more faith in a business that says, "We do it this way, coz it's the best way for us to make a profit", than one who says they do it to repay the loyalty of their customers. That's not to say that looking after loyal customers and making a profit are mutually exclusive, just that businesses exist to make money, and I'd be happy to see TWI succeed.

I'm no economist, but selling a product, then asking for more cash from existing customers (for DLC and so on), whilst skimping on free repairs seems more profitable than selling a product and maintaining a team to support the game as the sales diminish

Again this isn't a jab at TWI, I'm just interested to know. But I'll stop now as it's OT and I don't want to get into any arguments

 

[hockeywarrior]

I definitely agree that BF3 has inevitably had an impact on RO2 player numbers. That is obvious. That said, I think this reason is FAR from the entire story, and indeed most of the long-time RO players that I know (from RO1 and the mod days) do not cite BF3 as their reason for not playing RO2 -- it comes down to gameplay problems. RO2 is not the game they expected, and they just have no desire to play it. Right now, sadly, I am definitely included in this crowd.

I'm glad that you at least acknowledged in a general way that there are alot of concerns about gameplay on the forums. It would have been nice, honestly though, if the community had gotten SOME sort of communication on this much earlier. I'm sure alot of flaming, ranting, and things that are generally bad for a game's image could have been avoided if this stuff were addressed much sooner. PR is a major problem on these forums, and posting simple updates on what's being worked on and listened to in the Announcement section would have worked wonders.

That said, I guess I'll still hold some hope that the concerns that many of us have been droning on and on about over the last two months (or earlier, for us beta testers) will be listened to. It's hard, because we have no idea what is being listened to and what is being ignored. Hopefully, if nothing else, some mods start taking shape that encompass what we want. I fear, however, that many of the people that were interested in creating mods like this have lost interest in RO2 altogether.

I guess time will tell. Given the lack of communication from TWI regarding wide-spread and specific gameplay concerns from the community, I still think that mods are the best hope for this game going forward. Prove me wrong, Tripwire.