A plea to my fellow AFPS nerds

[matoki]

I get it. New boticle is announced, you buy it without even reading, and suddenly you're like "wait why can't I strafejump". Next thing you know you're seeing cards and there's RNG. You're upset.

Now here are your options:

A. Post an angry negative review, then normies come in, see the "mixed" reviews and immediately think the game's utter garbage, the game ultimately fails, and you're left with nothing, not even the servers of the original.

Or...

B. Wait. Chill. Exit game. Refund if you want. Tell the devs what you don't like about the game, even if you think it's really obvious stuff. See how the patches are going. Maybe try another version after a while. Or don't, you don't have to like this.

But please for the love of god, don't bury this game in negativity because it's not like the original Diabotical. THE ORIGINAL DIDN'T WORK. Yes, all of us liked it. But in terms of wide market appeal, it didn't have any. And without that, there's no normies, no money, and therefore no longevity and no maintenance.

Let me be clear: the only way you'll get your AFPS revival, is if you don't profusely sh*t on this game on Discord or Steam before it ever gets in the hands of your normie friends.

Yeah, there's a chance it'll never be the Quake clone you wanted, but there's also a chance it'll become a really fun game that you'll be able to enjoy just as much as those old games. But that will only happen if you chill the f*ck out on the negativity, let the devs figure out how to bring in the players, and tell them what you want the game to be like - without throwing a tamper tantrum in front of potential new players.

[Seekay]

old men yelling at clouds, tale as old as time tbh. and of course DBT still exists, so if they wanted a pure arena fps, they could play one if they really wanted to. but why play games if you can complain about games instead

[Vigil]

I agree with the gist of OP, but the original "didn't work" because it went exclusive to Epic Games Store. That's not how you get "wide market appeal".

[Megapal]

Originally posted by Vigil:

I agree with the gist of OP, but the original "didn't work" because it went exclusive to Epic Games Store. That's not how you get "wide market appeal".

if ppl liked it they woulda played it regardless of the platform, no one plays afps, its worth a side mode in a more fleshed out game at most

[matoki]

Originally posted by Vigil:

I agree with the gist of OP, but the original "didn't work" because it went exclusive to Epic Games Store. That's not how you get "wide market appeal".

While this might've played a role in how quickly the game dried out, it's not really all that cut and dry - not every Epic exclusive is doomed to fail... not even close. It's probably an amalgamation of different reasons, and I sense that it had more to do with the game itself and its overall appeal.

I remember a bit after the original launched, 2gd said that the game has a significant dropoff rate which he suspects is due to the game not being addictive enough (memory's kinda fuzzy though).

I also remember quite a lot of interest on Twitch, among pros of different games (even outside of FPS entirely), and a few of the top streamers played it with 20-50k viewers. If a game fades out quickly after that kind of publicity I don't think it's fair to put the sole blame on the Epic store.

I mean, even some games that are hosted on their own website, and not listed on any launcher, have enjoyed more success than DBT.

It's hopeful to think simply bringing the original to Steam now would be a total gamechanger and the game would flourish, but I'm skeptical it would even make a dent. An easy (non-scientific) way to test this yourself btw, is - go and ask a non-AFPS buddy who had tried the original to come play DBT with you, and tell them it's on steam now. I imagine most would be completely indifferent... unless you tell them the gameplay has been reimagined.

If this game succeeds, I imagine it'll be mostly thanks to the devs experimenting with game styles that normies find more appealing, not just the move to Steam.

[TzeroX [AKA]]

To be fair i did expect a bit more from this game - yes i did play tons of Diabotical and play Openarena/Quake3 to thjs day.
But Movement does feel weird/slow/sluggish - not satisfying enough, then theres the RNG factor, i just dont think that RNG fits well with something that u play kind of "competitive", its stressfull and feels unfair.
But im not leaving a negative Review just because its not my Cup of Tea, but i wont leave a positive one aswell.

Probs tho for trying this experiement, mixing those genres together - best of luck for the devs.

[i dnt play this game]

https://imgur.com/a/6TYW0qc

yeah they totally captured the normie audience by adding nonsensical roguelight mechanics and nerfed movement btw.

in reality its the same 100 deranged boomers still playing 2GD's games after the disaster that was Diabotical. And a good 50 of those were involved with game design via consultation.

[matoki]

Originally posted by Michael:

https://imgur.com/a/6TYW0qc

yeah they totally captured the normie audience by adding nonsensical roguelight mechanics and nerfed movement btw.

in reality its the same 100 deranged boomers still playing 2GD's games after the disaster that was Diabotical. And a good 50 of those were involved with game design via consultation.

Of course, it's a widely known fact that games are at their peak the moment they start an early access phase, especially an experimental pivot. Market fit is found as soon as you start looking! Hallelujah.

Tell me something, if you're not a fan of the new version, and not part of the same 100 deranged boomers still playing 2GD's games (seeing as you are mocking them), why are you here?

[Neptas]

Originally posted by matoki:

Tell the devs what you don't like about the game

Yeah, cause that really worked out fine when mass people complained about Diabotical going EGS exclusive (when it was promised to be on Steam on their kickstarter originally). Result: People didn't get their game at all, and Diabotical failed in the "marketing blackhole" platform.

If the game is truly bad, it deserves negative reviews, that's how it works. One could say it's even their 2nd chance to make it work, at this point there's no excuse.

Originally posted by matoki:

THE ORIGINAL DIDN'T WORK. Yes, all of us liked it. But in terms of wide market appeal, it didn't have any.

Here's the problem. You can't expect AFPS to have wide market appeal. If you aim for that, you're destined to fail, especially when you bring absolutely nothing new to the table. It also didn't work mostly because of the devs' fault as well, so again, I won't defend them.

Originally posted by matoki:

Let me be clear: the only way you'll get your AFPS revival, is if you don't profusely sh*t on this game on Discord or Steam before it ever gets in the hands of your normie friends.

Well, first, the way to get AFPS revival is to have AFPS. This is quite far from an AFPS if we're being honest. I just looked at the game a little, but from what I saw, classes (so players aren't equal and they don't have the same abilities/tools), 2 weapons max per player, no pick-up except power-up, quite slow movement, and barely any focus on map control (because of no pick-up). This is closer to Overwatch than to Quake (not pejorative, Overwatch in 2016 at release was fun, but it's no AFPS).

[THE ETERNAL TÜRK]

As much as I respect Yames for doing Diabotical in the first place, I can't make any excuses for this - he's quite delusional for charging this much for a bare-bones early access arena shooter.

[Blindlight]

they kinda missed the boat tho-- apex and xdefiant feel faster than this-- so whats rly out of touch with mainstream?

[Modern Horror Gaming]

nah, diabotical would have a small community if they had put it on steam within the first few months. Diabotical is probabaly the best quake clone with fluid animations and good net code. What was the reasoning for not putting it on steam. I legit had 5 different friends who play AFPS and they were like "yeah im not installing EGS" so that right there should tell you "why diabotical failed" , it didnt fail. they didnt expand the market for some reason

[Seekay]

GD Studio were close to bankruptcy, and it's not like Valve is known to help out indie devs financially, so they took the Epic deal that ensured they could continue putting food on the table and actually manage to release the game, continue to update it, as well as fund esports, and the continued development of the engine and future games, such as this one.

If they had not done that, Diabotical would never have been released in the first place, and the company would have gone down under. Some manchildren unironically would have preferred this outcome, for some reason. Gamers don't deserve games, I swear. The level of disrespect and apathy towards the people that make the games they want is insane. They would cheerfully ruin the lives of people over having to right-click a different icon in the system tray, it's beyond parody

[drogoz]

Normals are hyped about cool looking characters not eggbots

[matoki]

Originally posted by drogoz:

Normals are hyped about cool looking characters not eggbots

I tend to agree, but as 2GD said in his recent dev stream, their focus right now is to work on the fun aspect of the game - if they can suss out a game mode that gamers old and young are enjoying, everything should fall into place afterwards.

Big picture: start fresh - experiment with gameplay 'til it works - find market fit - go full blast. Afterwards you can do whatever the hell you want - bring in a "classic mode", appease the AFPS crowd infinitely. But that won't happen without the initial steps I mentioned.

[Zenilant]

Originally posted by Megapal:

Originally posted by Vigil:

I agree with the gist of OP, but the original "didn't work" because it went exclusive to Epic Games Store. That's not how you get "wide market appeal".

if ppl liked it they woulda played it regardless of the platform, no one plays afps, its worth a side mode in a more fleshed out game at most

zero reason to install Epic Games Store just to play Diabotical when Warfork is free on Steam and is just as dead. I understand why they took Epic's money but this is the longest I've ever seen a game stay Epic-exclusive so the assumption I'm making is they're just straight-up not allowed to put the game on Steam, ever, which was a bad decision. I have Diabotical installed and I don't play it because the Epic Games Store is just that unbearable and all my games are already on Steam which is running on my PC 24/7 anyway.

Anybody who says "$15-20 is too much for a new shooter" is crazy, it's a perfectly reasonable price for a non-F2P game and if it was free it probably would be dying just as fast. This game already has fewer concurrent players than Quake Champions which is pathetic considering that game was in Early Access for half a decade and didn't initially launch on Steam either.