let's talk about what's wrong with this game and why won't it have a bigger player game base

[RoyalSamCZ]

today I read somewhere that the developers would like the game community to grow so let's count the minuses why it will never grow much: 1.there are one hundred percent more anomalies than in other stalker games and they are not visible and that is the main problem 2. the game is full of cheaters 3. it would be nice if there was a teleport between the discovered bases because this is terrible 4. you need to have the previous gear to unlock the next one which is also pretty crap sorry but it is 5. in a normal stalker game all you need is money for buying new weapons and gear and they say they still want to increase the difficulty, so gg now it's just a running simulator and no one needs to play it

[Belmont]

Цитата допису Von Gamerstein:

First, I can only speak for my experience because otherwise its speculation and hearsay and that's worthless.

So you're again missing the point that there are a large majority of players that don't have your experience, and are offering their side of the perspective. So the entire game should be balanced, or in this case, not touched because your experience was perfect? How selfish.

Цитата допису Von Gamerstein:

Second, I didn't suffer through anything. It's been enjoyable.

Subjective opinion. What is fun for one is not fun for another.

Цитата допису Von Gamerstein:

Dumbing down titles for the causal player has been the death of almost every game that tried to be something. People are not suggesting innovation they are complaining about difficultly and set backs. In a game of winners and losers, sometime you lose and seeking ways to mitigate those loses all come from a place of "make things easier and fast for me regardless what others think"

Please list me examples where taking feedback and making changes based on improving the game experience for a larger number of people and making things more accessible ruined a game, because from my perspective over the years I've seen far more examples of the opposite.

An MMO is a constantly evolving game. It's not static. It's designed, at it's core, to change, adapt, and grow. Like the devs said in another thread, this game is *not* Stalker. It's not meant to be Stalker. It takes atmospheric and visual queues from the series, but at its core it is an MMOFPS with slight RPG mechanics and looter shooter elements. The game will not survive or thrive if at every suggestion, the only responses people can offer in rebuttal are "lol git gud", "skill issue", etc etc.

Let's look at that as a valid excuse for a moment. Skill issue. Who's skill exactly is the baseline being developed around? What skill level is difficulty balance, AI balance, etc all based around? For a successful game, it obviously shouldn't be the top 5% or even top 10% of players. The game should be designed around an average player's skillset in mind, which allows some to excel, a small number to fail, and the vast majority to have an average experience.

The way you're talking, is that there's no issues what so ever with the game, and every complaint is a skill issue. Again, congratulations, you may very well be in that high skill area. Many people are not.

Please remember, with respect, I am speaking from a player-size population and economic success of the game's viewpoint. I am not making these counterpoints from some "OH MY GOD THE GAME IS TOO HARD" aspect. I am looking at things from an angle of what makes the game mass appeal to more players, to increase the player count, secure player-count retention, and make the game a healthy success. That's all I'm debating. You're acting as if every suggestion people make is a personal attack on the game.

Calling out game design that is frustrating to players is not attacking the game, it's giving feedback to hopefully improve it.
Calling out game design that is overly spammy and makes no sense, like anomaly placement being out of hand in some areas, is not attacking the game. It's giving feedback.
So on, and so on.

Stalcraft has to compete in the F2P market, a market already saturated with some incredible games. For it to survive, it MUST cut out its own portion in that space and secure a healthy playerbase. The current numbers are not healthy. They are barely a tenth of what a healthy F2P game on the market's numbers are.

Цитата допису Von Gamerstein:

and for the sidenote, Fast travel ruins every game its in, It becomes the standard way of travel and the game becomes, teleport to location do something and teleport back. . fast travel is a double edge sword and a game like this would lose more than it gains for keeping the odd player happy they saved an hour of grinding. For every player they retain I think they would lose one on the otherside.

I'll concede the point that I highly doubt you and I will ever see eye to eye on the suggestion of fast travel. We are diametrically opposed on seeing it as either a net positive or a net negative. You firmly believe it will kill the game, which I think is absolutely absurd. I've never seen one game where having fast travel completely destroys the game. If you have some examples, I would very much love to hear them. Again, Stalcraft is not Stalker, but for the sake of tossing a counterpoint out there, having Guide NPC's in Anomaly certainly didn't kill Anomaly at all. Or is the opposition stance you're taking due to the fact that having an NPC Guide character that can fast travel you between two locations, would make farming more efficient and remove some chokepoint PVP areas, thus decreasing the amount of participation in PVP since it would be easier to ignore? That concept I can understand, and while I still don't agree with it, I can at least understand that as a counter argument.

[Von Gamerstein]

Цитата допису Belmont:

Цитата допису Von Gamerstein:

First, I can only speak for my experience because otherwise its speculation and hearsay and that's worthless.

So you're again missing the point that there are a large majority of players that don't have your experience, and are offering their side of the perspective. So the entire game should be balanced, or in this case, not touched because your experience was perfect? How selfish.

Цитата допису Von Gamerstein:

Second, I didn't suffer through anything. It's been enjoyable.

Subjective opinion. What is fun for one is not fun for another.

Цитата допису Von Gamerstein:

Dumbing down titles for the causal player has been the death of almost every game that tried to be something. People are not suggesting innovation they are complaining about difficultly and set backs. In a game of winners and losers, sometime you lose and seeking ways to mitigate those loses all come from a place of "make things easier and fast for me regardless what others think"

Please list me examples where taking feedback and making changes based on improving the game experience for a larger number of people and making things more accessible ruined a game, because from my perspective over the years I've seen far more examples of the opposite.

An MMO is a constantly evolving game. It's not static. It's designed, at it's core, to change, adapt, and grow. Like the devs said in another thread, this game is *not* Stalker. It's not meant to be Stalker. It takes atmospheric and visual queues from the series, but at its core it is an MMOFPS with slight RPG mechanics and looter shooter elements. The game will not survive or thrive if at every suggestion, the only responses people can offer in rebuttal are "lol git gud", "skill issue", etc etc.

Let's look at that as a valid excuse for a moment. Skill issue. Who's skill exactly is the baseline being developed around? What skill level is difficulty balance, AI balance, etc all based around? For a successful game, it obviously shouldn't be the top 5% or even top 10% of players. The game should be designed around an average player's skillset in mind, which allows some to excel, a small number to fail, and the vast majority to have an average experience.

The way you're talking, is that there's no issues what so ever with the game, and every complaint is a skill issue. Again, congratulations, you may very well be in that high skill area. Many people are not.

Please remember, with respect, I am speaking from a player-size population and economic success of the game's viewpoint. I am not making these counterpoints from some "OH MY GOD THE GAME IS TOO HARD" aspect. I am looking at things from an angle of what makes the game mass appeal to more players, to increase the player count, secure player-count retention, and make the game a healthy success. That's all I'm debating. You're acting as if every suggestion people make is a personal attack on the game.

Calling out game design that is frustrating to players is not attacking the game, it's giving feedback to hopefully improve it.
Calling out game design that is overly spammy and makes no sense, like anomaly placement being out of hand in some areas, is not attacking the game. It's giving feedback.
So on, and so on.

Stalcraft has to compete in the F2P market, a market already saturated with some incredible games. For it to survive, it MUST cut out its own portion in that space and secure a healthy playerbase. The current numbers are not healthy. They are barely a tenth of what a healthy F2P game on the market's numbers are.

Цитата допису Von Gamerstein:

and for the sidenote, Fast travel ruins every game its in, It becomes the standard way of travel and the game becomes, teleport to location do something and teleport back. . fast travel is a double edge sword and a game like this would lose more than it gains for keeping the odd player happy they saved an hour of grinding. For every player they retain I think they would lose one on the otherside.

I'll concede the point that I highly doubt you and I will ever see eye to eye on the suggestion of fast travel. We are diametrically opposed on seeing it as either a net positive or a net negative. You firmly believe it will kill the game, which I think is absolutely absurd. I've never seen one game where having fast travel completely destroys the game. If you have some examples, I would very much love to hear them. Again, Stalcraft is not Stalker, but for the sake of tossing a counterpoint out there, having Guide NPC's in Anomaly certainly didn't kill Anomaly at all. Or is the opposition stance you're taking due to the fact that having an NPC Guide character that can fast travel you between two locations, would make farming more efficient and remove some chokepoint PVP areas, thus decreasing the amount of participation in PVP since it would be easier to ignore? That concept I can understand, and while I still don't agree with it, I can at least understand that as a counter argument.

I am not sure the majority of players are having that hard of a time, I see some posts here and on reddit but no where near the majoirty of 10k plus players

I agree what is fun for one is not fun or another, which is why making large changes to the game should be done with careful thought

Games that got ruined by cauals?

I would argue ESO's world update shortly after release was a move for the worse and still ires me to this day, and a quick google shows I'm not the only one convinced casual's ruin games

Diablo 3, anyone remember that?

WOW, remember when leveling became a joke? I do

moving on

The game should evolve, The skill should be based on the competent, not the incompetent. I have wiped out 3 player squads, I've had single dudes out right destroy me.

Who the game skill should the game be based around seems an odd thing to ask. am I being handicapped or they being buffed? what metric would you even use? TTK seems to be a good one but that doesn't account for accuracy or position and teams.

I think server separation of players needs improved. Getting the Seekers Hawk to suddenly see everyone in power armour did suck. More tier of server would be better imo

I don't think a game like this would ever have mass appeal and your last comment is more inline with my thinking, Fast travel in a game like skyrim works because it's single player all the stuff that happens while travelling can be skipped, but if those NPC's are players not everyone is the hero, some are bandits, other's are victims to them and if players can bypass that, you are diminishing a role they need to fill. No one wants to be the victim, but we all cant be the hero or victor every time and those that find themselves unable to overcome that should not be happened a get out of jail free card that allows them to fly over the map, its not like its WOW and it would take a freaking hour to walk across the map.

[PurpleBatDragon]

Цитата допису Kashra Fall:

Ermm...You do know that people are suppose to be in the north, right? That's where you farm the final gear in the game, yet there is less than 4% of players there... People should not be sitting in the south(Bar) camping people and or objective just because they can. That's call stagnating the playerbase. Heck, someone even tested an objective quest marker in the DUMP. Someone had so much commitment to griefing, that they camped the spot for 12 hours. Being as quest objectives have no other entries, you have no safe route here and you can argue (Come back later.) but when exactly? The community is the reason the game won't succeed, because PvP as a whole right now, exists only to impede other players and the people PvPing risk nothing to do it, while the receiving end, risks minutes to hours of work.

Been having problems with PvP camping as well recently. Had a SINGLE bandit wiping out dozens of people in northeast Dark Valley, which is supposed to (in theory) be exclusively for Stalkers. He had all purple gear and was styling on everyone with a silenced Desert Eagle, which is weird since I and everyone else he killed were new players with low gear score.

I have come up with 2 ideas that may or may not be dumb.

1. Have faction map control use actual map borders, with chunks of the map letting a player be invulnerable to enemy players. Let PvP-heavy areas like Cordon, Dump, and the northern sections have open PvP, but still have corridors or edges of the map that are faction safe zones so players can bypass enemies. Have the respective areas in the east and west just be completely inaccessible to enemy factions. This honestly would probably break quests and make the game more boring with no risks.

2. Less drastic of a change: have the minimap show friendly players, so the player can deduce from the nearby player count if an enemy is around, but still not know where they are. Also, expand range of player counter to the whole area of the minimap, so players can't kill you without getting detected by the counter and giving the player SOME chance to defend themselves.

[PurpleBatDragon]

Цитата допису Von Gamerstein:

I don't think a game like this would ever have mass appeal

Unfortunately, you're probably right. It does in Russia, but that's because Russians/Eastern Europeans have a massively different taste in games. The problem is that, as an MMO, it NEEDS mass appeal and high player counts for its systems to work (and to make money), which is why content is still time-gated for us.

I'm still not sure if the game is essentially "finished" with no significant changes planned at all, or if the devs are serious about adapting the game to a western audience. They've talked about not including the monetization they have in place in the Russian version of the game because they know it wouldn't go over nearly as well in the west, so I'm hoping for the latter. If all else fails, and they can't keep the game afloat overseas, maybe they'll just let fans access the Russian servers but with the English translation and leave it at that.

[Belmont]

Цитата допису PurpleBatDragon:

Цитата допису Von Gamerstein:

I don't think a game like this would ever have mass appeal

Unfortunately, you're probably right. It does in Russia, but that's because Russians/Eastern Europeans have a massively different taste in games. The problem is that, as an MMO, it NEEDS mass appeal and high player counts for its systems to work (and to make money), which is why content is still time-gated for us.

I'm still not sure if the game is essentially "finished" with no significant changes planned at all, or if the devs are serious about adapting the game to a western audience. They've talked about not including the monetization they have in place in the Russian version of the game because they know it wouldn't go over nearly as well in the west, so I'm hoping for the latter. If all else fails, and they can't keep the game afloat overseas, maybe they'll just let fans access the Russian servers but with the English translation and leave it at that.

I know you were replying to Von but I'll piggyback onto this.

It's more like they physically can't have the same monetization. That same model they used in the RU version, is prohibited by EU laws. They can't use it.

As an MMO, the game absolutely needs to get a bigger appeal. It needs a growing playerbase to survive. It won't last if it only keeps a small steady playerbase, because over time that playerbase will eventually start to dry up and move on.

The biggest question and the two sides of the debate fence are, what changes are or are not acceptable within the game that would bring in more players? Because I'll be honest, right now, the way the game is designed and structured it most likely will not grow past it's 10k on high end playerbase (And that's combining Steam DB with an estimate of how many are using the launcher from the website, because let's be honest, most people play through steam. So 7k average from steam, 3-3.5k half of that as a healthy high end estimate from the launcher, for around 10k).

The core problem is, the game is designed to appeal to a niche of a niche. MMO players are already a smaller portion of the overall video game player population. You can look at crazy numbers from games like WoW and think that's incorrect, but pair it against the monoliths that are Call of Duty and an MMO population looks tiny. Now, the game is targeting a niche playerbase of THAT playerbase, the PVP-focused community.

Again, I'm not attacking PVP, or the core of the game, but the simple reality is that the way this game was designed, it by and large targets a smaller playerbase. This is just reality. So it's already hitting a smaller crowd, and then has to go up against other F2P titles like Warframe for example?

No one here wants the game to fail, I think we can all agree on that. My point from the beginning has pretty much been that making certain changes would help bring a bigger appeal.

I'll also agree that I don't think the game is finished either, which is readily apparent from the recent dev posts and previews of content they want to release. The problem is that they need a larger amount of the playerbase at end game for that content to work, and most likely a larger playerbase in general. So if the game doesn't grow and people don't progress for whatever reason... the content becomes moot.

If a large portion of the current playerbase isn't at "end game", it's completely justifiable to ask the question "why not?". My stance has been that just throwing out "skill issue" like a lot seem to do on this forum isn't enough to cut it. Are there examples where it's a clear skill issue? Sure, I'm not denying that, However I think it's also disingenuous to claim that balancing doesn't need tweaking, that perhaps the number of anomalies is a little out of hand, or adding a bit more visual queue to certain anomalies to help people (Especially color blind people). How about a bigger stance on cheaters? The glow edit was a huge problem recently, and will continue to be an issue until the game files get encoded, but the issue has been known for quite a while in the RU community and it still exists.

No game is perfect. Especially not an MMO. An MMO needs to update, change, evolve, and adapt to succeed. That's all I've been saying.

[PurpleBatDragon]

Цитата допису Belmont:

Цитата допису PurpleBatDragon:

They've talked about not including the monetization they have in place in the Russian version of the game because they know it wouldn't go over nearly as well in the west

It's more like they physically can't have the same monetization. That same model they used in the RU version, is prohibited by EU laws. They can't use it.

I never even thought of that. I naively thought they did it out of the goodness of their hearts, lol. Now I'm glad the EU, SEA, and NA versions are the same, because the good ol' US of A doesn't have ANY laws prohibiting that garbage.

[favlav]

Цитата допису PurpleBatDragon:

Цитата допису Belmont:

It's more like they physically can't have the same monetization. That same model they used in the RU version, is prohibited by EU laws. They can't use it.

I never even thought of that. I naively thought they did it out of the goodness of their hearts, lol. Now I'm glad the EU, SEA, and NA versions are the same, because the good ol' US of A doesn't have ANY laws prohibiting that garbage.

Not really the case. In general, we've always wanted to change the monetization model, but the question is too sensetive to just go ahead and change it everywhere. Since we had an opportunity to test new model of monetization on some blank servers - we just did. Currently we're looking at how the game is performing and how the monetization model is working out and if it'll do good, we'll also bring changes to the Russian branch.

[Shmowder]

Цитата допису GoliaTi:

1- skill issue
2- skill issue
3- skill issue
4- skill issue
5- skill issue

/thread

[Akameka]

2. Less drastic of a change: have the minimap show friendly players, so the player can deduce from the nearby player count if an enemy is around, but still not know where they are. Also, expand range of player counter to the whole area of the minimap, so players can't kill you without getting detected by the counter and giving the player SOME chance to defend themselves.

I think it would be a good modifiaction. After all, friendlies are shown on the map in most stalkers mods, so why not. Also, they need to upgrade footsteps. I am all good for the constant threat of pvp, but yersterday I had a stalker littreally sprint up to our back, and we did'nt hear anything until he mowed us point blank in less than two seconds after he showed on the counter. That should not be feasable. IMO, crounching should be silent, walking noticable from up to 20m, and sprinting for up to 40-50 meters.

[mikomiko22]

Цитата допису Kashra Fall:

The main thing holding the game back is the PvP. I'm not saying the existence of it, that is needed because the game lacks in a lot of areas. What it doesn't have is any reason for the PvP to exist, outside of simply existing.

My thoughts exactly. When you need to grind NPCs to progress and don't have anything to gain from PVP, it stops being PVP and just becomes griefing.

[Kashra Fall]

Цитата допису favlav:

Цитата допису PurpleBatDragon:

I never even thought of that. I naively thought they did it out of the goodness of their hearts, lol. Now I'm glad the EU, SEA, and NA versions are the same, because the good ol' US of A doesn't have ANY laws prohibiting that garbage.

Not really the case. In general, we've always wanted to change the monetization model, but the question is too sensetive to just go ahead and change it everywhere. Since we had an opportunity to test new model of monetization on some blank servers - we just did. Currently we're looking at how the game is performing and how the monetization model is working out and if it'll do good, we'll also bring changes to the Russian branch.

That's a curious choice. You take money from the RU players for "X" amount of time to give them booster packs and then take that away? Wouldn't that alienate any new players wanting to get ahead? It would be a similar situation as when it first launched here in the states/EU. People complained about the packs ruining their experiences because people with stronger gear were right outside on their doorsteps. Why? Cause the matchmaking system seems exploitable with friends.

I hope it all works out for you, you all have an interesting game, but from our perspective of 5 bucks a skin in a RNG box scenario, it didn't have much "OOmphf." to purchase into it.

[No;Hurry]

Been playing it for a bit, but will likely drop the game soon.

The game feels too unfair at times;

- Unlike stalker, escaping anomalies is nigh impossible and spotting them is rough.
- There is no ping on the map where to go to when an emission happens, so it feels like I have a random chance to die.
- The game events dry up too fast because there are too many players doing it.
- It's no fun when a stronger opposing faction player camps at a checkpoint for a quest so you can't progress for 2 hours.
- Having to run 1.5KM and being killed just before you hit the faction base by some random guy you can't see so you gotta do the whole run again makes me quit the game.

The game could also use some polish in other areas:

- Teleporting between safe zones would be nice (only if you are within one and have visited it before, paying a fee for it is a good way to balance).
- I wish the constructed guns we get from quest could be taken apart, otherwise they lose value on the long run which is kinda sad.
- Would be nice if I could sell all the guns and such I don't use as well.

The game has a rich story, the upgrade system isn't too bad, don't mind the grind, but I think this would work much better as a singleplayer or PvE multiplayer game. I really wish I could host my own instance of the server so I can play only with friends.

But as it stands, the fun I get out of it for the limited amount of time I can spend gaming on a day makes it not worth it at all. I don't need a second job in the form of a video game.

[alicemalice]

Цитата допису Joikax:

The only times I've felt like I've progressed meaningfully in the game and also gathered a significant enough amount of mats were and are preciselly when all the bandits are sleeping at very late hours.

Playing during daytime is just asking to deal with checkpoint campers and hordes of bandits at the dump impeding any sort of progress. Not to mention other stalkers going from cache spot to cache spot cleaning Dark Valley but that's to be expected.



Just earlier yesterday and last night I played from about 6PM to 6 AM (yea it's unhealthy, sue me). From that evening all the way to 1 AM I managed to successfully extract and stash a grand total of maybe 15 metal wires from the Dark Valley (3 caches) even though I was pretty much hard grinding that DV instance for hours. Between having the spawns cleaned from other stalkers and groups of bandits PvPing near the checkpoint from DV to Cordon everytime I'd come back with a haul I achieved almost nothing during those 7 hours of playtime.

Past 1 AM the bandits were gone from the checkpoints and stalker numbers also died down a bit, enough to actually allow me to get caches almost from spot to spot. I must have grabbed like 150+ wires afterwards because I've crafted everything I'd need metal wires for at this point, finally, and even went on to craft things I don't need yet, getting some duplicates for branching later on, and other stuff.

That felt so good I decided to finally go in hard on the dump expecting fierce pvp as usual but nah, actually it was cool seeing so many stalkers there for once even if the odd bandit still crossed my sights from time to time and got themselves shot. Went on to almost comfortably gather well over 150 crappite, mold and a whole bunch of copper wires from caches there too. I also finally managed to explore and get a better feel for the map zone itself and its many dangers and hot spots.
Man that felt so good (yes I'll say that again)... finally I could upgrade all the crap I had unlocked like a whole week or two ago. I've been lvl4 at cordon base for who knows how long and I was still using the first gear you craft there with seeds and roots. I hadn't even met Junkman yet until last night.
(This exploration part is something STALKER fans like myself love, and I think it's one of the strong points of Stalcraft aswell, but unfortunatelly the incessant and needlessly intrusive PvP hampers it severelly)

Finally I was also able and willing to continue the story. Met junkman, did his quest for the metal detector (better than the crafted one I was using), did the missing strike team quest there too, now I need to go to DV and kill the Beast but I'm leaving that for the next session. I even got daring enough to finally also set foot in Agroprom but I didn't dare stay for long.

5 hours where I could finally explore and progress meaningfully compared to what I had experienced since launch without completelly getting rid of the PvP aspect, just toned down enough to where it wasn't intrusive.





If this all sounds cringy it's because it is, cringy because of how hard something so mundane feels for the average player; Yet by virtue of that, also feeling amazing when they are finally let free to explore and experience Stalcraft beyond its oppressive PvP gankfests.

...And I'm not even at the Bar yet so I can just about predict, based on posts from other players here, how far I'll reach before stopping... assuming I don't stop playing earlier.

The MMO part is both one the best aspects of Stalcraft but also one of the worst if not the worst. Uncontrolled PvP and instances packed with players seemingly unbalanced in faction numbers not only ruin the atmosphere but also put a stop to both player progression and the desire to continue playing for longer periods of time and consecutivelly on the daily.


Stalcraft is something trully special indeed, but is currently a diamond in the rough.

lmao if you got only 15 metal while farming for hours it's a big ass skill issue ngl agroprom is full of bandits but you can get much more than that

[Joikax]

Цитата допису Medic Made in Heaven:

lmao if you got only 15 metal while farming for hours it's a big ass skill issue ngl agroprom is full of bandits but you can get much more than that

Oh yea going from known cache spot to known cache spot and finding them always clean from the sheer amount of people farming them in the same instance is most undoubtedly a skill issue. Tell us more, oh wise one.

[Belmont]

Цитата допису Joikax:

Цитата допису Medic Made in Heaven:

lmao if you got only 15 metal while farming for hours it's a big ass skill issue ngl agroprom is full of bandits but you can get much more than that

Oh yea going from known cache spot to known cache spot and finding them always clean from the sheer amount of people farming them in the same instance is most undoubtedly a skill issue. Tell us more, oh wise one.

At this point it's just wasted breath. Every single point people bring up about the game is shouted down as skill issue over and over again.

We'll see how the game is faring in six months to a year with this wonderfully stagnant playerbase.