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About "RO2 Dying"

I feel like most of you guys don't know how to properly complain, hence being ignored.

Most of you guys don't tend to humanize the devs at all, and most of you guys certainly don't cooperate within your own groups nor do any of you try to reach out to others who have a passing interest or who are interested in this game.

Instead of a co-operative venture between the community and the devs ,which is obviously the best solution, it's usually troll the devs while trying to maintain some an essence of what possibly ought to be done.

It's a damn pity that the 'community' (though hardly monolithic) is so exclusive rather than inclusive.
 
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Any thoughts of an upcoming free weekend or game sale?



It's better financially to be the first on the market. Their sales would have been less if they waited until AFTER bf3 and MW27. They really didn't have much of a choice. It was either release early and make enough money to sustain them for a long time and take a gamble on bugs and player population, or release later and make half the money and still not attract many players.

Not rocket science.

Not arguing that, but you also remember that someone has to keep the lights on in TWI offices, and KF and RO1 will only get you so far. They've squeezed every penny they can get out of those games, and when the bills come rolling in you have to keep your staff fed and power pumping to the computers.

It'd be a nice world if people could develop things until they were ready, but the simple fact of the matter is that there is only so much money you can spend before you have to start paying it back.
 
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Amerikaner and Zetsumi pretty much covered all my major points. Nice posts guys.

Thanks for posting something Ramm, although there has been far too little info coming out of the TWI offices since release TBH. A little update from someone every week would go well in consoling the masses that things were moving forward.

If you really believe BF3's launch was the cause of losing half the remaining playerbase then you really need to start paying attention to who's left.

Pretty much sums up the present situation.....
 
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Good to see some positive engagement, I like the fact that you touched on the two biggest issues facing the game at the current time. The balance and content.

My advice and I truly hope that you take it under consideration for the good of the company.

1. Fix relaxed realism and realism modes one at a time and let the community know which one you are working on first so they can engage, contribute and provide feedback.

2. Relaxed must have a balanced weapon approach similar to what I have been talking about and it must be able to be toggled so if a realism server wants "balanced weapons" they can. For example, Relaxed gun balance gives 40's and 44's significantly more recoil.

3. Start promoting a content competition now with as much prize money as you are able to starting when the SDK is of a sufficient enough quality. If you do this right, you will get a huge amount of value in content compared with creating the content yourselves. Just have one of your guys tidy up the entries. This is really important because I think the content creators will need some incentive to get back into RO again as I don't think its just going to happen like it did with RO. Spend that money wisely and it will come back to you tenfold.

4. Do some simple changes that will help the community see you are listening to them, Change the default weapon load-outs on servers, fix some of the lock-down times on some of the maps, remove spawn protection when reinforcements run out and remove AI gunners.

5. Prioritise what needs to be fixed intelligently, I personally think that this is the cause of all the problems that we see today. Spending so much time on doing the insides of tanks, the effort into the authenticity of the maps and things that really aren't important in the big picture instead of getting the game ready for release first has cost you dearly. Don't be arrogant and think that you can stick with what you have and build on it, don't be afraid to redo something entirely. Tanking needs a complete overhaul, its just tragic at the moment.

Good luck with everything, I've already played the game huge amounts and will continue to do so, I just want a game that others can enjoy enough so that I can jump on 7 days a week and get a game in Australia with more than 20 people during normal gaming hours.
 
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I've just closed several "RO2 is dying" threads. Not because we want to censor the forums, not because we don't care about feedback, but just because it all is getting a bit silly.

So lets chat a bit about the situation. I've said a lot of this before, but I'll mention it again just to make sure everyone gets a chance to hear it. RO2 had a rocky launch. You know it, we know it, everyone knows it. We learned a lot about hitting retail deadlines (when they are simultaneous with the digital launch), setting timescales, taking LOTS of risks, pushing the envelope on both gameplay and performance and more. So with what we've learned we'll certainly do a lot of things differently the next time we release a game. With that said, it's time to stop beating that dead horse. Whats done is done, and we should all look to the future, not the past. For our part we have been and will continue to work our butts off solving issues with the game as quickly as we can. We've already knocked out the lions share of the major issues, and continue cranking away at it.

So what about the player counts. Many people is touting the drop in player counts as the death knell of the game. Certainly I think we'd all be happy if they were as high as they were a few weeks ago. But this is really to be expected. We've been saying all along we expected to take a hit when BF3 and MW3 ships. You can't have two games come out with a combined marketing budget of $200 million dollars and not expect to have some players go check them out. Before BF3 came out peak player counts were around 3,000, now they are half of that. Peak players of 3000 at this point in the life cycle of the game is the best we've ever done. Especially considering the rocky launch the game had, I'm pretty happy with those numbers. Putting it into historical context though, even with peak player counts of 1500, the game is much more popular than any game we've ever done at this point in it's life cycle. Killing Floor for instance was peaking at about 800-1000 players at this point in its life cycle. Eventually however it grew to peak player counts in the 4000-5000 range.

So what does the future look like? As I've previously mentioned Killing Floor player counts dropped off pretty quickly after launch. But then something happened. Tripwire's commitment to the long term success of the game turned it around. Through polishing up the game, doing special promotions like free weekends and special themed events, and through releasing lots of free content for a long time after the release of the game it grew and grew. You see it is a key difference in the strategy of Tripwire vs the EA's and the Activisions of the world. Their strategy is to spend a 100 million dollars in marketing to get everyone to buy the game day 1, then to nickel and dime you for the next year with overpriced DLC's. Tripwire's strategy is to market the game as well as we can for the launch (although we aren't yet big enough to spend 100 million dollars), and then provide continued value for our customers over the long term. It is this long term value that in the end will bring the player counts up just as we did with Killing Floor. It will bring new players in, and bring existing players back.

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This is what I've been saying all along, yet people were claiming I was being too optimistic or being too much of a HL Member..... this has simply been the case since the original RO Mod and it's what you guys have been doing all along..... unless you guys suddenly and drastically change the way you guys treat your games, this is what will happen to RO2.

So what are we working on right now?

First off we're making great progress on the mod SDK. We've recently released an update with functionality so modders can compile their own code to make mutators and mods. Soon we will release the full SDK with support for publishing mutators and custom maps. Why has it taken so long? Frankly we were caught off guard by the complexity of getting the modding tools working with "cooked content". All of these tools worked fine internally for or development content. But when you pack up and ship a UE3 game all the content gets "cooked" which reduces the file sizes and improves load times. So the SDK had a lot of issues handling this "cooked" content. But as I've mentioned we've got most of these issues worked out and will be shipping the full mod SDK soon.

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.

Cool.... may I make a slight suggestion?

I've seen on here a lot of people constantly posting threads and asking all the time what you guys are working on, when can they expect some information, why aren't you guys answering them, when's the next patch, etc. etc..... Threads like this provide far more information then what most ask for and that's great..... but just so the players/fans are kept in the loop and so you guys are not constantly having to take your time away from working on the game to continually pamper people with information, maybe a general update post once every two weeks to give the community a heads up on what's going on behind the doors could be the answer.

Everybody would get a post like this to read every two weeks and then for the next two weeks nobody should expect you guys to keep giving them information and thus, you guys can spend more time working on the game and doing your thing until the next posting.

It could also please those who come in here every 2nd day asking what you guys are doing because they'd get that information on a specific day, they won't expect another posting for two weeks and might focus on other things or go play the game for two weeks and everybody could know that on this day or around it, they would get new information and come rushing in to read and then go on to do their own thing..... rather than continually coming in every day to ask what's going on.

Those people who keep asking can just be directed to the last post you guys made and then told to wait until such'n'such a date for the next update.

Even if it's just a short blurb saying "We're still focusing on this issue and almost have it ready" would be more than enough for 90% of the community.

Just a thought.... carry on. :cool:

We are also starting work on our first batch of free content. This includes finishing up some of the features that didn't quite make the shipping date. We'll have more news on this going forward but suffice it to say we've got some cool stuff coming for the game.

Sweet.... BRING IT ONNNN!!!

The other thing I see a lot on the forums is grumbling about various aspects of the game, particularly that the game is either too realistic, or not realistic enough, or not realistic in the particular manner that whichever person posting the thread thinks the game should be. We're keeping our eye on the community and will certainly be incorporating community feedback as we move forward. You all can help us with this though by not making us wade through thread after thread that is either just blatantly flaming, or is just another useless "RO2 is dying" thread. Threads and posts like this make it difficult for us to get to the meat of what people's concerns and feedback truly are. So please help us receive your feedback by making well thought out and constructive posts, and keeping the flame thread/posts to a minimum.

I would also like to point out that no matter what we'll never be able to get the game exactly like everyone wants it. There are just too many differing opinions. So I would suggest that people play around with the tools we've provided to customize the gameplay to their liking. This is a really great testbed for you guys, and if someone has a certain type of custom setup that gets really popular, it shows us Devs that it is something the community likes. In our last update we added the ability to limit weapon and class perks, which allows those of you that don't like certain high end weapons to limit/prevent their use on your server. Additionally there is functionality to tweak a lot of gameplay parameters (damage, etc) as well. So on both ends of the spectrum you can easily make the game more/less hardcore. So start playing with those values and see if you come up with something that a lot of people like, then let the Devs know about it!

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Thanks for the update and the continuing work on fixes/content. As for hit detection....if enough people are saying it, don't you think there might be some problem? I stood not more than ~5ft away from the back of someone, iron sighted him for heart shot.....and it missed (yeah yeah...I hate melee combat). Three more shots later and he finally moved and was killed by someone else. Not 1 hit registered from ~5ft away with a SVT.
 
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Ramm to address your mention of lack of general constructiveness when it comes to some issues or suggestions I think the reason a lot of people are resorting to cheap shots and anger is that they feel they're being ignored and I'm sure a lot of people would like to discuss their perceived issues with the game with you in a rational manner if there was a bit more back and forth exchange.

Some suggestions are ridiculous and unreasonable but there's still quite a lot of reasonable ones

I think another reason why people are not being very constructive is because they ran out of patience with some other members in the community who continually recycle the exact same arguments from thread to thread, even when what they are posting has already been refuted, already shown as incorrect over and over.... and eventually people just get sick of trying to respond to them in a mature manner because they obviously don't listen.

Those fed up could just ignore them and stop posting, but the problem that comes from that is that all those people who keep flooding the forums with the same stuff over and over again start to appear to be the majority of the community due to spamming the same messages over and over, and without people providing opposition or countering their claims, it can easily appear as though everybody agrees with them.... and then something is changed in the game that ticks even more people off and creates a whole new mess.

So since trying to debate them in a mature manner doesn't seem to get across and nothing seems to get accomplished, perhaps a different approach is in order.

Heck I even tried to meet some people halfway with their ideas I flat out don't like and tried to suggest some compromises between the two views so that some logical outcome could be reached, but many will simply not budge from their positions, they won't allow any sort of compromise and act as though their view is the absolute correct view that everyone should adopt.... including Tripwire.

So if they're not going to try and have a civil debate and try to reach some sort of compromise, why should I or anybody else bother? If trying to refute them or debate their arguments in a mature manner doesn't seem to work and they just jump into another thread to start the exact same debate all over again..... eventually you just get sick of it and perhaps a different approach is needed to get the message across to these people.

Just my observations.

Thanks for the update and the continuing work on fixes/content. As for hit detection....if enough people are saying it, don't you think there might be some problem? I stood not more than ~5ft away from the back of someone, iron sighted him for heart shot.....and it missed (yeah yeah...I hate melee combat). Three more shots later and he finally moved and was killed by someone else. Not 1 hit registered from ~5ft away with a SVT.

Obviously there seems to be a problem for some players, but they have no clue where to start to find the problem. People just telling them stories of situations when they didn't hit their target isn't enough information for them to go by.

And obviously you can't send out some crash report for them to study since it's not a crash issue, so there's no numbers for them to crunch.

The best solution is to get yourself and a couple of friends to try various tests, record them and post them on YouTube so you can show the devs which situations this happens the most.... then provide your specs and your screen resolution (and video settings) so they can at least narrow down what might be causing the problem and can see exactly what you did so they can then at least try to reproduce it.
 
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shrugging.jpg


This is what I've been saying all along, yet people were claiming I was being too optimistic or being too much of a HL Member..... this has simply been the case since the original RO Mod and it's what you guys have been doing all along..... unless you guys suddenly and drastically change the way you guys treat your games, this is what will happen to RO2.

Second post in this thread, I smugly declare "I told you so". You can see how well it went over.

You and I have been shouting this back in the faces of the howling, poo-slinging chimps that have been swinging all over this forum since the beta, but we were just overly optimistic TWI fanboys who couldn't see the bigger picture of TWI wanting to screw their playerbase out of their money and sell them another disposable, crappy modern shooter.
 
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So what does the future look like? As I've previously mentioned Killing Floor player counts dropped off pretty quickly after launch. But then something happened. Tripwire's commitment to the long term success of the game turned it around. Through polishing up the game, doing special promotions like free weekends and special themed events, and through releasing lots of free content for a long time after the release of the game it grew and grew. You see it is a key difference in the strategy of Tripwire vs the EA's and the Activisions of the world. Their strategy is to spend a 100 million dollars in marketing to get everyone to buy the game day 1, then to nickel and dime you for the next year with overpriced DLC's. Tripwire's strategy is to market the game as well as we can for the launch (although we aren't yet big enough to spend 100 million dollars), and then provide continued value for our customers over the long term. It is this long term value that in the end will bring the player counts up just as we did with Killing Floor. It will bring new players in, and bring existing players back.

Tripwire knows how to rock it old school. Tripwire has yet to screw me over on any of my purchases, every game has given me long term value. There is an unspoken covenant that has yet to be broken, i shall keep the faith.
 
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Obviously there seems to be a problem for some players, but they have no clue where to start to find the problem. People just telling them stories of situations when they didn't hit their target isn't enough information for them to go by.

And obviously you can't send out some crash report for them to study since it's not a crash issue, so there's no numbers for them to crunch.

The best solution is to get yourself and a couple of friends to try various tests, record them and post them on YouTube so you can show the devs which situations this happens the most.... then provide your specs and your screen resolution (and video settings) so they can at least narrow down what might be causing the problem and can see exactly what you did so they can then at least try to reproduce it.
I know it's an elusive issue. I don't experience it that often so it's not a game breaker for me (I tend to think of it as dud rounds), but it seems almost everyone has similar stories. I fail to see how they can claim it never happens to them, unless they are just not playing very much.
 
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Too much for some here though

Or maybe try some other way of revenues ?
Like keeping the game an open beta for any pre-order until the game is polished so you can still put the "beta" sign up as an excuse for poor performances ?

You can say all the sweet things you want now ( we're gonna keep working on the game, we're gonna add tons of content, we're gonna fix the gameplay and the bugs) and it's good if they turn out to be true but a huge damage has been done.

A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever
I dont think you can compare HoS situation to RO:Ost and KF in any case for one simple reason : RO2 was advertised as a full commercial game with quite some hype built around it while the previous 2 games were MODs making it to retail.

It feels like RO 2 was released as a mod that will get better with time
If you add on top of this the great lack of communication from the dev team, it just gives a very bad impression and I'm sure I'm not the only one disappointed and that feels "betrayed" ( well my trust in TWI went from "blindly preordering the DDE" to "meh I'll be extra careful with their next release" ).

ah and this http://steamgraph.burstpixel.net/in...&jstime=1&from=1315951200000&to=1320274800000http://steamgraph.burstpixel.net/in...&jstime=1&from=1315951200000&to=1320274800000
is not showing just a drop bec of BF3. It sure helps but it is not the sole responsible for the constant drop since release less than 2 months ago.

Now I hope this will go up a bit with bugs being fixed, flaws in the gameplay being looked over and new content being released.

It's a damn waste of the great thing that RO2 could have been SINCE release ( and not half a yaer later after months of patching )
 
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ARMA 2 was buggy piece of **** when it was realeased. Everyone raged and hated it. Now after few good years ARMA 2 community is friendly, makes mods and the game is gold.

Now RO2 is crap. But developers, mods and time will fix this game. ;)
Lets face it its ****y now.

Difference is:

Bohemia didn't sellout their old audience for the mainstream like Tripwire have done. The problems in Arma were a lot of bugs and performance issues. Tripwire drastically changed in the RO formula in order to make the game appeal to a wider audience. Because that's what the real problem is. The bugs, glitches, and performance issues are just minor. I doubt Tripwire will be the ones who makes in game more Hardcore than it is right now. It will be the modders. I am not going to fix these issues right now. It's not my job. I've already payed for the game and that's about enough for now. It Tripwire don't have manpower to fix what's broken it's their own fault. They changed the formula in the first place.
 
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Tripwire knows how to rock it old school. Tripwire has yet to screw me over on any of my purchases, every game has given me long term value. There is an unspoken covenant that has yet to be broken, i shall keep the faith.

Preach it brother! Very happy with every purchase I have made from Tripwire, extremely happy with RO:HoS and very much looking forward to some of the plans they have for it's future. Keep up the good work TWI! Remember, some people would find a reason to complain even if they won the lottery, don't let all the whining get you down.
 
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Thanks for a very concise and positive post, Ramm. We're all very excited too see the game improve over time and play it as it changes (even though some of us might not even realize it).

I am curious, if a mutator/mod becomes popular and is deemed useful but not gamebreaking, would it be added to a whitelist for use with leveling honor & weapons?
 
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I am curious, if a mutator/mod becomes popular and is deemed useful but not gamebreaking, would it be added to a whitelist for use with leveling honor & weapons?

^This.. Its ok Ramm saying that we can do x or y on unranked servers but at the moment this just divides up an already rather low population who mainly only play on Ranked servers.

Whats needed is the ability for certain mutators to be allowed on Ranked servers so we still have a pop.
 
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