Why is the playerbase so small.

[Doomguy-senpai]

The game was once for a short time free, it had several freeweekends and once the playerbase was about 14000 and then it shrinked to 1000 again, hell you get even 3 guest passes for friends if you purchase the game and it barely helps. Why so few players?

[[Volk]SpixTalon]

Steep learning curve. No run and gun gameplay. WWII seems to be rather unpopular among the younger playerbase.

[JolyJew СлаваУкраине]

steep learning curve and CRAP TUTORIAL, you forgot to add. it teaches you nothing about the actual gameplay - when to attack, when to advance, etc. all it does is teach you gun basics.

that and also the game is overflowing with bugs and horrible design choises to this very day.

so only tryhard dedicated players who are willing to die 10 times in a row to learn the game and it's bugs can eventually enjoy it, hence, the small player count.

i should remind that Battlefield 2, had gameplay pretty similar to RO2 and was'nt run'n'run, is considered one of the best FPS of all time.

because of a nice smooth learning curve with detailed toturial and bot practice and little to no bugs

[=(e)= Lemonater47]

The tutorial for squad leader, tank and team leader are fine. As they at least tell you how to play the class.


But yeah skill based games that aren't button mashing skills don't retain their players very well.

[Pistolero]

The unmeasured response to hacking and cheating closed off any possibility for community growth because it cut too deep and without thought for consequences. Had this been managed more intelligently I believe the player base would be several times what it is today. I find it difficult to believe only a few thousand people worldwide are capable of enjoying skill-based games. Too few maps are actually being played on the main servers, further adding to redundancy and further diminishing player enthusiasm. The game started out using an older engine, so the need for an upgrade is thus more readily apparent.

[Ailes]

not sure if its cheating related. i played the first RO for some while. dropped it because i didnt like exhaustingly hard PvP shooters at the time much anymore. did start with RO2 due to free pass. hopping into Rising Storm occassionally. its just a very special, hardcore-ish game. its not really suited for the common casual, fast-paced mind. it seems the same with insurgency, which afaik isnt really played that much either, at least it wasnt when it was a free source mod still. was the playerbase of RO or RO2 ever really that great? I suppose not.

also, unlocking items and perks is an awful decision if you ask me. the edge of this doesnt seem that great. but too many games go with unlocks. newbies going into it, and who may have it hard enough already, may pull out because they think this is some kind of grind-to-win thing. then parts of the community seem very elitist. touch SL, don't have honor level X, do one thing wrong and some people already go ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on you instead of talking to you properly.

if you want new players promote the game. and what makes it rewarding. to me every kill feels special. taking out a sniper or mg or tank or breaching through some flank actually means something in this game. or going into hand-to-hand combat. "sniping" at some other rifleman from the distance with bolt-action rifles can be a very tense feeling too. try to make others feel this too. perhaps they will then see what distincts this game from more arcade-ish shooters. and be friendly to newbies. explain them things rather than insulting them. your life won't be ruined if you give up SL or some advanced classes/weaponry to someone else once in a while.

[St3amed Hams]

Steep learning curve + slow tactical gameplay + a few glitches (because of small developer) = small player base.

Not many people appreciate truely challenging and tactical games these days. Everyone wants to pick up a game and run around being a super soldier. The game is very punishing to new players so the vast majority simply give up.

That said, the playerbase that this game does have will be very devoted because there aren't many similar games out there. The tactical shooter genre seems to be dying. :(

[Ailes]

Origineel geplaatst door Cat Branchman:

The tactical shooter genre seems to be dying. :(

There is still ARMA

[St3amed Hams]

Origineel geplaatst door Clarity:

Origineel geplaatst door Cat Branchman:

The tactical shooter genre seems to be dying. :(

There is still ARMA

True, but I usually consider that to be in the milsim genre (and consider that a seperate genre).

[Loco]

Too many people without skill, short attention spans and an immense lack of situational awareness, no run-and-gun-you-can be the hero-gameplay etc.etc.
Games for which you actually need to invest a minimal amount of time to get gud are rare.

Some people also think popularity is a good way to measure the quality of things, also stop making these threads, I always find my full servers and nobody ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cares, stop making these threads, thanks .

[Roachracer]

Origineel geplaatst door Jolly Jew:

steep learning curve and CRAP TUTORIAL, you forgot to add. it teaches you nothing about the actual gameplay - when to attack, when to advance, etc. all it does is teach you gun basics.

that and also the game is overflowing with bugs and horrible design choises to this very day.

so only tryhard dedicated players who are willing to die 10 times in a row to learn the game and it's bugs can eventually enjoy it, hence, the small player count.

i should remind that Battlefield 2, had gameplay pretty similar to RO2 and was'nt run'n'run, is considered one of the best FPS of all time.

because of a nice smooth learning curve with detailed toturial and bot practice and little to no bugs

still spouting BS jj, surprised you are still here, do you even play anymore, not seen you in any servers for a while, has the game finally beat you?

[Loco]

Origineel geplaatst door Roachracer:

Origineel geplaatst door Jolly Jew:

steep learning curve and CRAP TUTORIAL, you forgot to add. it teaches you nothing about the actual gameplay - when to attack, when to advance, etc. all it does is teach you gun basics.

that and also the game is overflowing with bugs and horrible design choises to this very day.

so only tryhard dedicated players who are willing to die 10 times in a row to learn the game and it's bugs can eventually enjoy it, hence, the small player count.

i should remind that Battlefield 2, had gameplay pretty similar to RO2 and was'nt run'n'run, is considered one of the best FPS of all time.

because of a nice smooth learning curve with detailed toturial and bot practice and little to no bugs

still spouting BS jj, surprised you are still here, do you even play anymore, not seen you in any servers for a while, has the game finally beat you?

I seriously think he has some issues, his frequency here is comparable to Moskito, only that he always spouts some inane BS.

[Lyngton]

Origineel geplaatst door Clarity:

Origineel geplaatst door Cat Branchman:

The tactical shooter genre seems to be dying. :(

There is still ARMA

And ArmA(3) is now fast becomming just a template for silly mods like Altis Life.

[=(e)= Lemonater47]

Origineel geplaatst door scrahn:

Origineel geplaatst door Clarity:

There is still ARMA

And ArmA(3) is now fast becomming just a template for silly mods like Altis Life.

Just like arma 2 was.

[Lyngton]

It's probably a mixture of things:

Steep learning curve.

Learning the little things is one thing, but learning the big things (like how to read the flow of battle) is where most people give up early. The little things can be learned in guides (found on steam), and while some of the big things can as well, most of them just have to be learned through experience.
I'm new to the game (~30hrs), but I feel like I've started to figure out the various timings for when I can expect enemies to be at X spot, or how long it takes for me to get to Y spot.

Extremely short TTK. (time-to-kill)

Which means that he who shoots first usually lives. This favors map knowledge, tactics, positioning and awareness over twitch and pinpoint accuracy (though reactionspeed and accuracy also help). This circles back to 'Steep learning curve'.

Requires patience.

Something many gamers (and many people in general) don't have. This is personally where I gave up at first. I bought the game about two years ago and played for a few hours before giving up. I didn't have the patience to wait when I should have waited; instead rushing out and getting whooped, followed by uninstalling the game and saying soothing (dumb) things to my ego such as "the game just favors noskill camping and luck" or something to that effect.

World war 2 setting.

I have friends that love WW2-themed stuff, and friends that really dislike it. I personally am fascinated by the time period, and the war as a whole (history buff), so I don't really understand what it's like to not like WW2-stuff.
I suspect part of the reason is the "boring" weaponry. Lack of red-dot sights and silencers probably put some people off -- but then again the game 'Insurgency' which is similar to RO2 in some respects but has these things is even more niche than RO2.

PR

Free weekends and sales aside, the game hasn't really gotten much PR which likely contributes to it's rather niche status. Granted, these days smaller games usually thrive on word-of-mouth alone, but it takes a bit more for a WW2 shooter to get noticed and reach critical mass in terms of hype. At any rate 'hype' is probably the wrong word, but you catch my drift I hope.

Bugs / Quirks / Odd design choices.

While there are things in the game that stand out as 'strange' or 'dumb' compared to other games, you usually learn to avoid many of the bugs that might infuriate newbies and prompt them to quit. This point circles around to the 'Requires patience' mentioned earlier.

Small competitive scene. (seemingly)

I honestly know very little about the scene in this game. It might be a healthy scene, but I haven't heard of the game spoken of as a competitive game. It mostly just seems like there are groups of people that wear the same tag (and own servers) in order to have an in-group that they belong to rather than a clan that they actively compete in leagues and scrims with.

This is fine in itself, but a healthy competitive scene usually gives the plebs (like me) something to gun for; be it in the form of "I came close to/above that good clan-guy in the score list *Feelsgood*" or "I should join a clan and se how far I can go!".

That said I already take note of people with tags and where they are on the score list, then compare my performance to theirs; it's just that I haven't heard of them outside of the particular server I'm on at the time.

[Gibbo]

Origineel geplaatst door Pistolero:

The unmeasured response to hacking and cheating closed off any possibility for community growth because it cut too deep and without thought for consequences. Had this been managed more intelligently I believe the player base would be several times what it is today. I find it difficult to believe only a few thousand people worldwide are capable of enjoying skill-based games. Too few maps are actually being played on the main servers, further adding to redundancy and further diminishing player enthusiasm. The game started out using an older engine, so the need for an upgrade is thus more readily apparent.

lol who cares about people who have cheated? For what it's worth, the playerbase has hardly changed since the vac ban server tool was implemented. I'm glad they can't play, or have to jump through hoops to play and if anything this will get more people to play if they know all known cheaters will have trouble playing. And also, even if what you say is true (it isn't) I wouldn't want to play with several thousand known cheaters.

The problem is most gamers can't handle a game like this. They like things simple. They like to be able to do well straight from the get go and in this game that isn't going to happen. People don't like games that are hard work and expect to be able to master it easily. Also, there are still some annoying bugs. Game breaking bugs.

Time. Time is very valuable for a lot of people. If you want to get anywhere in this game you need to pump some time in. Certain maps are 45 minutes long and people just haven't got the time especially when they are getting owned.

The community. I actually think the community is pretty good on the whole, but I think we have all encountered the over-eager, shouty players that drive people away through taking this game too seriously. That being said I have encountered more 'good' players who help and advise.

Maps. The same maps are just played to death. I like Bridges but sweet baby jesus not 4 times in a row. The tank maps put people off. People like to play a certain faction on a certain map. They like a certain role too. This will impact the game.

The community is divided. We have two games in one. The community will lean to a certain game. From what I see not many people play Rising Storm.

Bugs. Several bugs plague this game. Some get you killed which is an instant turn off. It just adds to the frustration.

And last but not least, most people don't like 'hard' games. It's that simple. I don't like to get frustrated playing games, but this game will frustrate a lot of people just by its nature. People don't like that. Most will just give up.