Why The Finals are likely to be over soon towards the end of this year (my POV)

[dAsh]

I see a lot of confused player here, people who doesn't really know what's going on or just commenting for the sake of it. So i'll share my feeling from another post here to answer in my opinion the question "why the player number are dropping". and why this game is going to be dead towards the end of the year.

People who left are not going to answer your question here. But as i'm on the blink of leaving, let me solve you or some other people's puzzle who actually want to understand what I think really happened instead of just making an argument or a thumbs up to cheer up the devs' hardwork. I'll be explaining using simple bullet points, via some data, marketing, gaming and company knowledge and ultimately my personal experience POV to tell you --- why this game is doomed to be over soon (possibly). (based on 2.5.0 version review)

Starting from beta, i think it was great start.
/great marketing
/lots of hype
/fun physics
/fresh
/can be enjoyed solo
x bugs
x lack of gun/gameplay variety
x cheaters
x unexpected events/design negligence
Without official data but relying on YouTube views, 2 betas at the beginning and seeing a lot of beta skins in the early release of the game my own experience i think it had great potential for them to push it forward to be say at least. the number at the beginning also explains.

Release is where it goes downhill.
/great marketing
/still lots of hype
x same tactics and meta builds
x same physics but not good anymore (i'll come to it)
x lack of gun/gameplay variety
x cheaters
x unexpected events/design negligence (i'll explain below)
x grinding
It's clear that the finals are trying to go down to the e-sports route. resulting in them nerf everything to make everything feels almost as fair as possible for a 3 player team, 3v3v3v3 teamfight regardless their combination or choice of load-out. This might be a good business decision like Dota2 and LOL with high price pool over the past decade to gain more revenue and popularity and branch off to animation etc but bad for game like "The Finals". Here's why:

The choice of physics engine. E-sports is about being precise. You know what happens and expecting things to work to a certain degree. So basically less tolerance for bugs and those design negligence. i.e why i'm acceding on zipline when i'm actually trying revive my team; why stealing a cashout can be stopped when the building shakes about 0.1mm; why i'm stuck and couldn't really move around in on a felt building ceiling...the list goes on.

Being an e-sport game, this is further frustrated by nerfing of damages. Most would agree
that this game is about teammates. If you ever tried to play solo you'll know how much a nightmare it is. You have a bad teammate (not as experienced/different play-style/grifing)you're out. You have someone who dropped out then you're out with 1v3v3v3. That's unless you have a gun and you just shoot them 300m away and then stealing the cashout when they all dead. To make things worse you cannot leave as you will also get punished which is the grinding part. This decision to go down to e-sport and other decisions that made related to it, magnified the problem it originally had, turning a fun, casual type of game into serious nick picking e-sport game which no one was attracted to in the first place in those marketing materials. it frustrated those players it attracted. Most people who still say they enjoy it and hasn't sighed are likely often playing with 2 friends minium. because with just 2 in a group the third player can still ruin your game experience.

The grinding part i mentioned is about ranking/quest for skins. It's a business decision. We know a free game can't live forever. It gives those free player a purpose to grind. But it's too punishing for players who wins only 1 game as you can lose 1 or 2 arrows in the new system (previously you can still gain FP); too punishing if they dropped out due to server issue; too punishing if a team only had 1 person and also lose their first game. What's even worse is those CIRCUIT quest contract has a time lock so you can't unlock them all at once. now that's aimed for every player. Yeah they want it this way as otherwise why would you come back for more? player number are dropping. It's a desperate decision but also a game killing one because people aren't going to tolerant those bad game direction decisions for some skins even if you lock them away. it doesn't solve the fundamental issue - the game is not fun or enjoyable to play casually.

Other points are quite self-explanatory so I won't go too deep. but lastly anyone who say there's no cheater in the game or is a skill issue please stop. You don't know what you're talking about and maybe you're lucky you never faced one or maybe you just didn't know they're cheating because there's no death cam. But how do I know? Because i've experienced dozen of times, people who gets 40 kills in one game all done 200 meters away, or people who map hack to know where you are exactly and shoots you the moment you're in sight, or people who ignores shield and you get killed within your own shield. It's there. There's way to combat it by sneak up on them using goo or building obsticals. but then the nerf just killed that possibility because you can no longer have a chance to win as a solo. like i said, solo is a nightmare. but casual is what this game marketing material is trying to tell you.

I don't think it's someone's decision but more like a group/company decision. either way not a great choice so thanks for the initial hype and good luck with your next game Embark I hope you learn something or if not then that's it. There's too many UI/keybinding/mouse sensitivity bugs that I wouldn't even mention it as you've got enough on your plate. Even though these things have been there since day 1.

To the developers who made the game. well i guess it's just a job right? if your passion has been put down don't worry there's always something in life that can make you feel proud. thanks for your work regardless.

I don't know how much they're making but player count is certainly dropping since the launch of this game even till today. and if they cannot keep the server running with the current revenue steam they have. it's likely to be over.

[Myauritcio]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3225422938

[Dhomochevsky]

Originally posted by dAsh:

I see a lot of confused player here, people who doesn't really know what's going on or just commenting for the sake of it. So i'll share my feeling from another post here to answer in my opinion the question "why the player number are dropping". and why this game is going to be dead towards the end of the year.

People who left are not going to answer your question here. But as i'm on the blink of leaving, let me solve you or some other people's puzzle who actually want to understand what I think really happened instead of just making an argument or a thumbs up to cheer up the devs' hardwork. I'll be explaining using simple bullet points, via some data, marketing, gaming and company knowledge and ultimately my personal experience POV to tell you --- why this game is doomed to be over soon (possibly). (based on 2.5.0 version review)

Starting from beta, i think it was great start.
/great marketing
/lots of hype
/fun physics
/fresh
/can be enjoyed solo
x bugs
x lack of gun/gameplay variety
x cheaters
x unexpected events/design negligence
Without official data but relying on YouTube views, 2 betas at the beginning and seeing a lot of beta skins in the early release of the game my own experience i think it had great potential for them to push it forward to be say at least. the number at the beginning also explains.

Release is where it goes downhill.
/great marketing
/still lots of hype
x same tactics and meta builds
x same physics but not good anymore (i'll come to it)
x lack of gun/gameplay variety
x cheaters
x unexpected events/design negligence (i'll explain below)
x grinding
It's clear that the finals are trying to go down to the e-sports route. resulting in them nerf everything to make everything feels almost as fair as possible for a 3 player team, 3v3v3v3 teamfight regardless their combination or choice of load-out. This might be a good business decision like Dota2 and LOL with high price pool over the past decade to gain more revenue and popularity and branch off to animation etc but bad for game like "The Finals". Here's why:

The choice of physics engine. E-sports is about being precise. You know what happens and expecting things to work to a certain degree. So basically less tolerance for bugs and those design negligence. i.e why i'm acceding on zipline when i'm actually trying revive my team; why stealing a cashout can be stopped when the building shakes about 0.1mm; why i'm stuck and couldn't really move around in on a felt building ceiling...the list goes on.

Being an e-sport game, this is further frustrated by nerfing of damages. Most would agree
that this game is about teammates. If you ever tried to play solo you'll know how much a nightmare it is. You have a bad teammate (not as experienced/different play-style/grifing)you're out. You have someone who dropped out then you're out with 1v3v3v3. That's unless you have a gun and you just shoot them 300m away and then stealing the cashout when they all dead. To make things worse you cannot leave as you will also get punished which is the grinding part. This decision to go down to e-sport and other decisions that made related to it, magnified the problem it originally had, turning a fun, casual type of game into serious nick picking e-sport game which no one was attracted to in the first place in those marketing materials. it frustrated those players it attracted. Most people who still say they enjoy it and hasn't sighed are likely often playing with 2 friends minium. because with just 2 in a group the third player can still ruin your game experience.

The grinding part i mentioned is about ranking/quest for skins. It's a business decision. We know a free game can't live forever. It gives those free player a purpose to grind. But it's too punishing for players who wins only 1 game as you can lose 1 or 2 arrows in the new system (previously you can still gain FP); too punishing if they dropped out due to server issue; too punishing if a team only had 1 person and also lose their first game. What's even worse is those CIRCUIT quest contract has a time lock so you can't unlock them all at once. now that's aimed for every player. Yeah they want it this way as otherwise why would you come back for more? player number are dropping. It's a desperate decision but also a game killing one because people aren't going to tolerant those bad game direction decisions for some skins even if you lock them away. it doesn't solve the fundamental issue - the game is not fun or enjoyable to play casually.

Other points are quite self-explanatory so I won't go too deep. but lastly anyone who say there's no cheater in the game or is a skill issue please stop. You don't know what you're talking about and maybe you're lucky you never faced one or maybe you just didn't know they're cheating because there's no death cam. But how do I know? Because i've experienced dozen of times, people who gets 40 kills in one game all done 200 meters away, or people who map hack to know where you are exactly and shoots you the moment you're in sight, or people who ignores shield and you get killed within your own shield. It's there. There's way to combat it by sneak up on them using goo or building obsticals. but then the nerf just killed that possibility because you can no longer have a chance to win as a solo. like i said, solo is a nightmare. but casual is what this game marketing material is trying to tell you.

I don't think it's someone's decision but more like a group/company decision. either way not a great choice so thanks for the initial hype and good luck with your next game Embark I hope you learn something or if not then that's it. There's too many UI/keybinding/mouse sensitivity bugs that I wouldn't even mention it as you've got enough on your plate. Even though these things have been there since day 1.

To the developers who made the game. well i guess it's just a job right? if your passion has been put down don't worry there's always something in life that can make you feel proud. thanks for your work regardless.

I don't know how much they're making but player count is certainly dropping since the launch of this game even till today. and if they cannot keep the server running with the current revenue steam they have. it's likely to be over.

Originally posted by Myauritcio:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3225422938

if you dont like the game why do you even waste your time posting stuff about the game "is over" "dead" "yadda yadda" justo move on.

[Indy1944]

Game was dead long time ago, only greedy, cheating wanna be streamers play this disaster of a game.

[76561199673536926]

The devs know the game was unique, but its terrible for anyone with an ounce of competitiveness. They would be responding to any of the mounting criticism if they thought they could save the game. I honestly think they just accepted the fact that they will never be able to balance this game and the cheaters are too far out of control so they've moved on to other projects

[Der Gute Kamerad]

Originally posted by Embark Did 911:

The devs know the game was unique, but its terrible for anyone with an ounce of competitiveness. They would be responding to any of the mounting criticism if they thought they could save the game. I honestly think they just accepted the fact that they will never be able to balance this game and the cheaters are too far out of control so they've moved on to other projects

Did you make a new account just to make a poor attempt to dog on the devs in the game discussion?

[wrath]

bro wrote a whole new testament ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[THEVISITOR]

me after asking chat gpt what 2+2 is

[Vanguard]

> x cheaters
I stopped playing a few months ago, every second match was an unplayable match where one team had one or more people with a K:D ratio of 7 to 1 or something.

I was so amazed that the world elite apparently is playing in my casual quick cash matches, so I decided to leave.

I don't know if the game is dead or not, but I feel I agree 90% or more with your sentiment, OP.

[mccluckers]

Originally posted by Vanguard:

> x cheaters
I stopped playing a few months ago, every second match was an unplayable match where one team had one or more people with a K:D ratio of 7 to 1 or something.

I was so amazed that the world elite apparently is playing in my casual quick cash matches, so I decided to leave.

I don't know if the game is dead or not, but I feel I agree 90% or more with your sentiment, OP.

i love how you assume that if somebody in your match is doing good they're either a hacker or a world elite gamer. there is literally no other option that crosses your mind. you couldn't even for a second consider that maybe there is just one above average player in a lobby with average (or worse) players who is having a good match

[deezy1233]

im plat 3 at the moment... i hear when i reach plat 2 i will see a lot of cheaters... i reconzining at the moment only 1-2 cheaters at all.. but i hope they will make something about it.... cheating its not fair

[gamer posture]

I do think the game will die without significant changes that would make playing ranked fun, ranked currently is unusable to anyone who doesnt have 2 friends online at the same time, and wins/losses instead of judging individual performance in a match is extremely lazy and doesnt belong in this game whatsoever. an esports scene of this game would make people realize how uncompetitive this game is, this is the FPS equivalent of mario party.

[Sn4pFPS]

this is the only good game right now , git gud.