The other 80% of RO2 players dont want a "realism" mode.

[>< f4ct0r...13]

My kid plays CoD on PS3.

I watch out of the corner of my eye. I was amazed at how many similarities there are to RO2- I was saddened.

There is a real opportunity to still make this game into a ground breaker. A commitment to realism both in game and in player features is the foundation, and a creative driver. The old adage "less is more" can be expanded into more and more when focus is on authentic presentation, because authentic presentation leads creative flows to the core of the game, which is depiction of WW2 combat. The possibilities of combat are endless, and thus one is only limited by their imagination when considering what they want to present to a player.

This same idea easily leads one into player awards. Wanna rank up your avatar? No prob, FF penalty is 1000 points. Wanna hero? Great, do something heroic on the battlefield, not log countless hours in game. Less suppression? GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE! Or don't- keep your cool and ride it out.

The point is ironic, and not easy to grasp, but here is one that long-time gamers can definitely relate to: Replayability is the key to a game's longetivity. Replayability comes from the offer of challenge, and diversity of game experience. Puzzles presented to the player that are solved using computer aids don't stay fresh, and never change. Getting Level 99 is great...for a few minutes. Bare bones gaming experience in a deadly environment where the authentic possibilities are endless presents a player with puzzles by the score, each one different from the last.

Less is more. When it is taken advantage of.

 

[Nezzer]

Roost had it as well, that is not the point. Attaching a bayonet requires new animations for it, and allowing weaponry to switch state. And basically changing weapon model.

Its not that it's impossible to do but, its something that likely requires quite some additional work. Personally I think being able to select whether i spawn with or without a bayonet would be sufficient for me. And that is something that can probably be realized with much more ease.

Can't they just recycle the animations from ROOST?

 

[Yoshiro]

Well I got banned and deleted from all forms of TWI testing, for my comments regarding HOS, together with the removal of my ability to accept people their first post in the support sections, so you still better behave .

You have been removed due to your language and non constructive criticism while in a semi official support/qa role for the company. While you are free to express your opinion, the poor choice in how you did so is the cause of the change in your status.

 

[Yoshiro]

Supposedly StragoMagus had an outlining list on what those potential changes would be. Would love it if TWI shared some details even if it were simply conceptual at the moment.

We will be expanding more in the coming days and weeks as to our active plans. We are changing how we release information to a degree but I'll touch on that more in the next "what we are up to post".

And to correct you, what Strago put together for me was a initial "potential development time list" for many of the items requested for by community feedback.

 

[Sensemann]

Yoshiro,

Regarding the feedback ingame, on the forums (here and steam forums), as well as the low player numbers, don't you at TWI think that further information from your side would be a great help for all of us, the players, you and the dev team of RS?

Your more or less regular weekly posts are a great tool for you to communicate with the community but I am certain that I am not the only one who thinks that the quality of info is rather poor. I mean no offense but mostly they sound like a politicians speech: talking a lot without saying anything.

I and many others are following these forums on a daily basis, yet, I am absolutely clueless on what to expect from TWI regarding gameplay changes and adjustments of game features. The forums were full of very detailed posts from players that expressed their issues with the game and suggestions of how to make it better. There are already 2 maps released by the community on which the echo is rather positive. Yet, TWI has only come to the point to ask for what changes we want.

There is only so much we can do for providing feedback and, speaking only for myself here, I am not willing to repost again and again what should be improved. It's all here already.

What I would like to see is information from TWI on what is done about a realism mode. What will it include? Will it be ranked? Approximately when can it be expected? What kind of content are you planning to release next?
And, in my eyes most interesting to know would be a rough timeline. If you say that you are working on a realism mode and plan to release it between April and May, you are giving a wide timeline, which is still better than saying nothing, which let's us believe that you haven't really recognized the issues of the community or taking it into account.

The current stage of uncertainty on what TWI is doing next and in the long run is very disappointing. For the moment all my hopes are on the community on releasing maps and probably modes by themselves. Please show us some light at the end of the tunnel again.

 

[dazman76]

An excellent post Sense, and I wholeheartedly agree I appreciate the weekly updates, but I also agree that they're a little bit politician-like. We all know and understand that the TWI team is small - so we don't expect massive changes in a matter of days. It would still be nice if TWI could just lay it out there though, and give us some actual info on what's planned, what's happening, and what isn't happening.

 

[Zetsumei]

Generally not every post of mine is going to be with the goal of getting the game to change or submit constructive criticism. Since I've talked with a lot of people on these forums I generally share my opinion on matters with my reasoning. Nothing there has changed, beside that together with a lot of old members I've pretty much lost faith. For every opinion I have, I've got multiple post explaining what things I dislike and why, and what I think would make things better. And similarly when other people post things I disagree with I give my comments on that together with the why. However most people seem to care for most things in relative unisol. I just go with the conversation, and state my opinion on things, which is what I've always done.

I can understand that as a company TWI want no affiliations with someone like me that doesn't like your game, and together with that is very talkative about his opinions on forums. In the end however I'm just a customer. (it would be nice to at least write me an emain rather than suddenly ban me on irc and remove all my access without any notification). The only thing I regret is that It took me to long to get to grips with the game before i could voice a clear opinion, it took me 80 to 90 hours before I understood the game enough to see that something was different in a bad way at which point things where likely already too late. Since the first sessions only allowed for a few hours beta time per week, and I simply wasn't able to manage and fully understand the game in those first months.

I'm a competitive player and in general the competitive scene is in a very dire state, tbh I haven't ever seen things so bad in general atmosphere, with all posts that I generally see is people stopping to play the game or looking for different games to play with. And I'm not talking about ROLadder, but the competitive scene in general. With scorched earth most first matches were won by forfeit wins and losses, due to clans not existing within the RO atmosphere anymore while there were only 32 teams participating (for reference a few months before there was a ro cup with 32 teams where every team actually played their matches, and those were pretty much only european teams rather than 50:50 us:eu).

On these forums in general all I read were posts about displeased customers for various well supported reasons. When TWI made a post simply stating that opinions of those people do not matter, and HOS has been their greatest success ever. Completely negating all the opinions of people I've been talking to with years, that for me was probably a turning point where I lost faith. Having a player amount similar to RO1 5 years after release 4 months after launch to me is not a sign, that things are good. And TWI not willing to admit that there have been mistakes made and things didn't turn out as planner nor apologizing in anyway to a community that has been there for years is what makes me angry. Its turning your back on the people that supported RO for years.

Anyway everybody is free to view my posts, and judge whether or not I give my reasons for my opinions. I just cannot continuously act happy with a game when I'm not and I'm sharing my real opinions with people. I'm just a customer that voluntarily did unpaid work. I didn't like KF its not my kind of game, which can happen. However RO was a game that I liked so much that I wanted to help TWI. HOS turned into a game that the majority of people that I know from the old game did not like, look for instance at all forum users with over 1000 points and see how many have either stopped visiting after the release of HOS, gotten banned or generally voice negative opinions. Most of the people with over 1000 points are the people I know longest. Perhaps TWI is looking for a new community, but when I think of this forums community I simply cannot imagine myself being there without the people that have been here for years. http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/group.php?do=viewmembers&groupid=3

Anyway the reason why I'm still around is because while the competitive community can probably never flourish, the game itself is still far from lost. And even only tweaking of the timing and amounts of individual features, could turn this game around and likely make it such that most Roost players love it, which is the most annoying part of it all. Every time I try to play HOS I still see the potential it had the first time I played it, which is only more frustrating.

 

[Apos]

You have been removed due to your language and non constructive criticism while in a semi official support/qa role for the company. While you are free to express your opinion, the poor choice in how you did so is the cause of the change in your status.

Perhaps you should start with firing people in your company for that what you have done to Red Orchestra at first place? Don't censor people who feels fooled by your commercial campaign and political promises. People wouldn't criticize you and your product if your gameplay design decisions wouldn't ruin RO game.
You dumped down gameplay massively and copied as much as possible from CoD game to raise playerbase (and showed how you don't respect, completely ignore old community) and it didn't work at all. 1000 players online after few months after release isn't success, it is big big failure + old and new players turned away from you (and these people will think twice before buy another game from you).

 

[RedFlagWaver]

Sometimes, destructive criticism is the only appropriate kind. You know, when something needs to be destroyed.

Ach, anyways...in a broad sense, I'd say trying to turn a niche game into something with mass appeal is, in this particular case, a spectacularly bad idea. The thing I enjoy most about relatively realistic games like what RO is supposed to be is the inherent difficulties in actually succeeding. Difficulties stemming not from artificial obstacles like having to level up (poo!) or otherwise grind all day long for weeks and months, or to take better drugs than the people I'm playing against; but the challenge of mastering the mechanics that, because of their grounding in reality, make inherent sense and come naturally to me. So in the end, it's less about muscle memory twitch gaming or having played the game longer than the opponent, but about making correct situational decisions, applying appropriate tactics, and learning from past mistakes.

And that's why I play hardcore games. Because with all the challenge they typically present, actually succeeding means that I did good. I didn't just do the same thing over and over until I got better than the other guy, but I learned things and made correct decisions, all the while playing against other people acting as serious obstacles.

So, a level-grinding upgrade system? Zero weapon sway? Instant sprinting?
Screw all that. Simplyfing the game in that direction is a one-way-ticket to making it redundant - it doesn't make it more accessible, since it's still too difficult for people used to more casual games, but it does fully and entirely destroy the whole point of it.

I love saying the same thing over and over again.

 

[Cwivey]

I think Apos' opinion is somewhat biased, don't you? I mean, it's not like in most RO2 thread he posts in, he's bashing TWI and the game now is it? Oh...wait.
Apos, if you've got that much anger against the game and the company, please leave, or at least stop ranting and raving in threads spouting the same things over and over again. If you want to hang about, see how things turn out, be CONSTRUCTIVE and don't just go "TWI has our money lololol, RO2 wont be fixed trololol". That kind of attitue gets on my tits, they've stuck with the game thus far and will continue to do so.

 

[Zetsumei]

If Apos' goal was destruction he wouldn't post neutral reports on http://www.redorchestra.pl/.

When people care for something, they get more angry when things go wrong, otherwise they wouldn't bother. On these forums a lot of the people just release their real opinions on things, with all the anger that comes from it. When reading you might need to put up a filter and take some grains of salt, but you don't get more unbiased opinions than when people are more emotional. Its rather that when are calm that people sugercoat and act more on an agenda.

 

[Apos]

If Apos' goal was destruction he wouldn't post neutral reports on http://www.redorchestra.pl/http://www.redorchestra.pl/.

When people care for something, they get more angry when things go wrong, otherwise they wouldn't bother. On these forums a lot of the people just release their real opinions on things, with all the anger that comes from it. When reading you might need to put up a filter, but you don't more unbiased opinions than when people are more emotional. Its rather that when calm people sugercoat and act more on an agenda.

Yep I posted many good words about RO2 because polish RO:O community was afraid of unlocks, player progression, relaxed realism and other things that were added to the game. They didn't want to buy RO2, but they bought it because they trusted TWI in their intentions and mine's preview/recommendation. I also helped them many times to make game running or explain things that they didn't understand.
Today I understand their feelings and concerns, also agree with them (and feel stupid).

Game for me doesn't need to be ultra realistic, but original and needs to have a good gameplay. HoS isn't original nor offer interesting gameplay. I play various FPS games from milsim ArmA 2 (w/ ACE and ACRE) to arcadish Battlefield 3, Team Fortress 2, other games and have fun there.
RO:O offered great balance between realism, historical accuracy and interesting/tactical gameplay. It was also original game that kept me and friends of mine busy for many years and I had great hopes for RO2 to be more popular than Ostfront, but you know what happened. Today friends play BF3, LoL and other games because HoS isn't even half good as Ostfront was.
HoS feels like cheap CoD clone. If I'd want to play a CoD I'd buy one.

 

[Yoshiro]

An excellent post Sense, and I wholeheartedly agree I appreciate the weekly updates, but I also agree that they're a little bit politician-like. We all know and understand that the TWI team is small - so we don't expect massive changes in a matter of days. It would still be nice if TWI could just lay it out there though, and give us some actual info on what's planned, what's happening, and what isn't happening.

We are working on doing exactly this, but it is taking time for everything to get into place.

 

[dazman76]

We are working on doing exactly this, but it is taking time for everything to get into place.

Thanks Yoshi Believe me when I say, we really do appreciate what you guys are doing, and we do understand that operating with a small team is very difficult. Oh yeah - and we also understand the desire to avoid promises that could be broken heh

 

[SiC-Disaster]

Ach, anyways...in a broad sense, I'd say trying to turn a niche game into something with mass appeal is, in this particular case, a spectacularly bad idea. The thing I enjoy most about relatively realistic games like what RO is supposed to be is the inherent difficulties in actually succeeding. Difficulties stemming not from artificial obstacles like having to level up (poo!) or otherwise grind all day long for weeks and months, or to take better drugs than the people I'm playing against; but the challenge of mastering the mechanics that, because of their grounding in reality, make inherent sense and come naturally to me. So in the end, it's less about muscle memory twitch gaming or having played the game longer than the opponent, but about making correct situational decisions, applying appropriate tactics, and learning from past mistakes.

And that's why I play hardcore games. Because with all the challenge they typically present, actually succeeding means that I did good. I didn't just do the same thing over and over until I got better than the other guy, but I learned things and made correct decisions, all the while playing against other people acting as serious obstacles.

So, a level-grinding upgrade system? Zero weapon sway? Instant sprinting?
Screw all that. Simplyfing the game in that direction is a one-way-ticket to making it redundant - it doesn't make it more accessible, since it's still too difficult for people used to more casual games, but it does fully and entirely destroy the whole point of it.

I agree with this post, though the sentences I left out I find to be quite harsh.

It's sad because I distinctly remember this one preview where one of the devs said that games these days are like cotton candy and it was time for a shooter which gave you some nice potatoes and a steak to go with the sweet stuff.
Well, I think we ended up with french fries so far.

 

[RedFlagWaver]

It's sad because I distinctly remember this one preview where one of the devs said that games these days are like cotton candy and it was time for a shooter which gave you some nice potatoes and a steak to go with the sweet stuff.
Well, I think we ended up with french fries so far.

Funnily enough, I really am a Steak and Potatoes guy IRL. Just never got why people like sweets so much!

Well, we still have Arma...but it just doesn't have the right flair for me. It feels bland and artificial, whereas RO with its historic context just gives me that extra bit of motivation.

 

[Cyper]

Arma is quite different. I play it regulary but it doesnt and it cant replace RO in any way.

 

[RedFlagWaver]

Alright...so I still have Warband. But Warband lacks any kind of injury model, so it just doesn't feel as good...

And you're probably right. ARMA is more of a coordination simulator than an FPS

 

[Golf33]

We are working on doing exactly this, but it is taking time for everything to get into place.

It shouldn't be that hard. I've seen it done well by game dev teams that were literally only a couple of people - take a look at the forums over at Matrix Games, some of the small dev houses over there do a great job of communicating with a fan base that can be very grumpy indeed.

Simple things like ensuing the community on discussions about gameplay design - if you don't think something will work or you already tried an idea and found it wasn't good in practice, tell people about it and why it didn't work.

You must have some kind of tool for tracking new feature ideas, gameplay and UI tweaks, and bug fixes. If someone's idea or bug report gets onto that list, tell them and give them the serial number - [TDUB]Thunderkat has the right idea over in the bug report forum. You can apply the same thinking to feature ideas, and let people know where they are in priority - next patch, a future content update for this game, something to look at for the next game. People are generally even happy enough if you explain that their idea doesn't fit with your game design philosophy and therefore will never be implemented - at least they have a reason. Of course, it helps if you can clearly articulate that design philosophy and explain how the current feature set fits into it...

Let the general community know when you are releasing a new build to the testers and (at least in general terms) what's in it. If it doesn't work or you see unexpected results from a gameplay tweak, post that so people know and can feel involved in your progress. Remember that people want you to succeed, and the angst on these forums is because they've watched you collectively shoot yourselves in the foot and apparently neither realise it not do anything about bandaging the wound...

 

[>< f4ct0r...13]

I think Apos' opinion is somewhat biased, don't you? I mean, it's not like in most RO2 thread he posts in, he's bashing TWI and the game now is it? Oh...wait.
Apos, if you've got that much anger against the game and the company, please leave, or at least stop ranting and raving in threads spouting the same things over and over again. If you want to hang about, see how things turn out, be CONSTRUCTIVE and don't just go "TWI has our money lololol, RO2 wont be fixed trololol". That kind of attitue gets on my tits, they've stuck with the game thus far and will continue to do so.

Your feedback is appropriate, but considering the passion RO vets have for the game, it is good that a thread is being allowed to run where they (we) can vent.

I certainly feel betrayed too, but I'm over it. The feedback from TWI has been very promising, and I love the game enough to wait for it.