please worry about player base

[Hellz]

worry about your player base instead of patch the game up/i wanna play the game but if no players this game is not worth it

[Kimosamie<sAp.]

Originally posted by Cyanide:

I know, i want this game to thrive however at the moment its hard to recommend it to anybody as it's clearly dead. i know the devs like to say the steam charts number isn't correct however whenever i try to play pvp i never find a game. I've uninstalled it because it isn't worth the space. I'm hoping when the "final release" happens we get some more players

The devs have explained this.
They used to let us connect with anyone no matter how far away. The game now prioritizes ping/location. Since the game is peer to peer. This means there could be 10 million people playing it but if no one near you is close enough, or good enough, you'll still never find someone. (Theoretically) The change was made based off of early EA feedback, but now it is biting them in the ass. It's been suggested to let people play with whoever they want, at least as an option, but I've never seen mention of said feature being considered.

Another issue is the game just instantly plops you in a match. It looks for like a few seconds then gives up. I'd be fine waiting in a lobby, which I think they're coming.

A final major issue is PC specs matter when searching too. If a person is hosting a match without a good upstream or a good PC for hosting players you won't be matched with them, at least from how I understood it. Xbox players don't have this issues, other then good upstream. Cross play is really important here.

Bonus issue: they turned a lot of players off by having the AI director being too easy until you're used to the game. My brother refuses to play the game because he thinks its too easy, we only did 3 runs. When we tried endless he loved that difficulty and then I tried to explain to him how the AI director is trying to get him used to the maps first, but he doesn't care. To him it just isn't fun when it spawns so few baddies at once, which I agree. There needs to be a textbox that explains this at the start that lets you opt out of a forced easy mode.

[notthatWillsmith]

Originally posted by Hellz:

worry about your player base instead of patch the game up/i wanna play the game but if no players this game is not worth it

Patches consistently bring news players in and old players back into the game. We're in early access, which means we are constantly relying on player feedback to fix and improve what we've built.

[notthatWillsmith]

Originally posted by Kimosamie<sAp.:

Originally posted by Cyanide:

I know, i want this game to thrive however at the moment its hard to recommend it to anybody as it's clearly dead. i know the devs like to say the steam charts number isn't correct however whenever i try to play pvp i never find a game. I've uninstalled it because it isn't worth the space. I'm hoping when the "final release" happens we get some more players

The devs have explained this.
They used to let us connect with anyone no matter how far away. The game now prioritizes ping/location. Since the game is peer to peer. This means there could be 10 million people playing it but if no one near you is close enough, or good enough, you'll still never find someone. (Theoretically) The change was made based off of early EA feedback, but now it is biting them in the ass. It's been suggested to let people play with whoever they want, at least as an option, but I've never seen mention of said feature being considered.

Another issue is the game just instantly plops you in a match. It looks for like a few seconds then gives up. I'd be fine waiting in a lobby, which I think they're coming.

A final major issue is PC specs matter when searching too. If a person is hosting a match without a good upstream or a good PC for hosting players you won't be matched with them, at least from how I understood it. Xbox players don't have this issues, other then good upstream. Cross play is really important here.

Bonus issue: they turned a lot of players off by having the AI director being too easy until you're used to the game. My brother refuses to play the game because he thinks its too easy, we only did 3 runs. When we tried endless he loved that difficulty and then I tried to explain to him how the AI director is trying to get him used to the maps first, but he doesn't care. To him it just isn't fun when it spawns so few baddies at once, which I agree. There needs to be a textbox that explains this at the start that lets you opt out of a forced easy mode.

FYI, we added two more intense modes to the co-op mode for people who want a harder game. We've also increased the speed that the Director ramps up the intensity on the default difficulty level thanks to feedback from players (like you)

[Carighan]

Originally posted by Hellz:

worry about your player base instead of patch the game up/i wanna play the game but if no players this game is not worth it

If they had wanted a sustainable player base, they would not have done an early access release.

Since "early access" is just a marketing term, in actual parlor it's "release", it means you're releasing a quite-intentionally unfit-for-release version of your software.

So you split up the playerbase that is interested:

* Some will buy it right away.
* Some will want to wait for specific things to get fixed.
* Some will want to wait for "the proper release", when it's feature complete, the version that should have been released in the first place.

Since a multiplayer-centric game heavily relies oni a critical mass of players, this naturally increases the chance that anyone from any of these three temporally distinct groups will go "Oh, meh, seems to be dying now" and leave themselves. Instead of all 3 groups buying the game at once on a single release date, you spread them out, increasing the chance they see the playerbase dip below critical mass and leave themselves.

Don't EA your multiplayer game. Yeah, some devs hit lightning in a bottle with that. But that's not something you can plan for.

[Heretic]

I'm one of those players that just lightly touched it early on and then have waited for 1.0 to get into it and give it a fair shake. I doubt i'm going to have a negative experience since I liked what I saw early on, but i'm interested in seeing the amount of "Less players than L4D2" posts that are going to be made and how many clown fishing trolls come by to declare the game dead a month after release.

I'm more compelled to play this game than I am Darktide because this game is a shooter, which is what I like and if the alien hit visual feedback looks good now(it wasnt in the game when I first tried it out), then I expect the experience to be quite good.

I try to explain to people that games like this are going to be considered niche, even if they are perfectly executed because at the end of the day there is a lot that goes into forming a persons personal interests. L4D had the great fortune of riding the coat tails of 28 Days Later and a host of other "zombie" related media, while getting special attention from Valve to bring the game to the fore, all while being the very first game to the party. The Anacrusis does not have that going for it, so whatever success this game enjoys is going to be well earned.

Good luck and hope to see you all out there on December 5th.

[Kimosamie<sAp.]

Originally posted by notthatwillsmith:

Originally posted by Kimosamie<sAp.:

The devs have explained this.
They used to let us connect with anyone no matter how far away. The game now prioritizes ping/location. Since the game is peer to peer. This means there could be 10 million people playing it but if no one near you is close enough, or good enough, you'll still never find someone. (Theoretically) The change was made based off of early EA feedback, but now it is biting them in the ass. It's been suggested to let people play with whoever they want, at least as an option, but I've never seen mention of said feature being considered.

Another issue is the game just instantly plops you in a match. It looks for like a few seconds then gives up. I'd be fine waiting in a lobby, which I think they're coming.

A final major issue is PC specs matter when searching too. If a person is hosting a match without a good upstream or a good PC for hosting players you won't be matched with them, at least from how I understood it. Xbox players don't have this issues, other then good upstream. Cross play is really important here.

Bonus issue: they turned a lot of players off by having the AI director being too easy until you're used to the game. My brother refuses to play the game because he thinks its too easy, we only did 3 runs. When we tried endless he loved that difficulty and then I tried to explain to him how the AI director is trying to get him used to the maps first, but he doesn't care. To him it just isn't fun when it spawns so few baddies at once, which I agree. There needs to be a textbox that explains this at the start that lets you opt out of a forced easy mode.

FYI, we added two more intense modes to the co-op mode for people who want a harder game. We've also increased the speed that the Director ramps up the intensity on the default difficulty level thanks to feedback from players (like you)

Yeah, I'm happy y'all did that but unfortunately a lot of people rely on first impressions more than anything. It sucks people aren't willing to come back. I've been trying to get my brother to try it again but he just doesn't want to.

[Kimosamie<sAp.]

Originally posted by Heretic:

I'm one of those players that just lightly touched it early on and then have waited for 1.0 to get into it and give it a fair shake. I doubt i'm going to have a negative experience since I liked what I saw early on, but i'm interested in seeing the amount of "Less players than L4D2" posts that are going to be made and how many clown fishing trolls come by to declare the game dead a month after release.

I'm more compelled to play this game than I am Darktide because this game is a shooter, which is what I like and if the alien hit visual feedback looks good now(it wasnt in the game when I first tried it out), then I expect the experience to be quite good.

I try to explain to people that games like this are going to be considered niche, even if they are perfectly executed because at the end of the day there is a lot that goes into forming a persons personal interests. L4D had the great fortune of riding the coat tails of 28 Days Later and a host of other "zombie" related media, while getting special attention from Valve to bring the game to the fore, all while being the very first game to the party. The Anacrusis does not have that going for it, so whatever success this game enjoys is going to be well earned.

Good luck and hope to see you all out there on December 5th.

If you're in a populated region, it's great.

Unfortunately for me, living in China, I have to use a VPN to play the game because I can't connect to the game's backend without one (Not even joking. I will see that little space ship fly forever. One time I started it and left to go sweep and mop my house. Never connected to the start up screen. Closed it and opened it back up tunneling out of Japan and it worked.) . So, I will try to tunnel out of Japan exclusively when I play. I can say the Japanese population near Tokyo is pretty empty. I've connected with randoms a total of twice. Both of which were Chinese players using a VPN like me.

With that said when I play with my family back in the states I have no connection issues, and when I tunnel out of the UK I tend to get matched up. I'm just usually busy during prime time for the UK.

[Hellz]

hope this wont be like earthfall