Why did SCUM go from mostly positive reviews to mixed reviews?

[秋枫落叶]

SCUM’s drop from “Mostly Positive” to “Mixed Reviews” is entirely self-inflicted. Let’s take a look at what these developers have actually done:

NPC update – NPCs seem designed solely to irritate players. They serve no real purpose.

Turret update – Almost no one uses turrets. They’re extremely hard to obtain, have a narrow attack angle, and require uranium from radiation zones to craft bullets—just so you can fight god-like Gundam robots that the devs have ridiculously buffed.

Watchdog system – This targets high-ping players, but the devs completely ignored China, where players need a VPN to play properly, resulting in consistently high ping.

Secret Gundam buffs – No idea why they made them stronger. Maybe the devs think the robots still aren’t powerful enough to drive players away.

Removal of most bunkers – This only makes resource gathering harder and delays player progression. In other words, it artificially increases difficulty.

Squad leave cooldown – What’s the point of this? Just another way to frustrate normal players?

Leg muscle weakness – Whether you have 3 strength or 8, no matter how much you carry, you can only jump three times. Maybe the devs themselves can only jump three times.

Body training strength boost? – It’s fake. The devs just show you a number. It’s actually slower than before.

Tractor update – It’s slow, can’t carry much, and is worse than a regular cart.

Running with a knife is slower than with a gun – This punishes DLC buyers. Holding a 5kg gun makes you run faster than a 1kg knife. That defies all logic.

Large raft – Entirely dependent on wind direction. You can’t paddle it manually. If the wind’s bad, it’s basically “Raft Survival.”

In short, most of the updates have been negative. Players have put up with all of it while the devs thought their changes were cool—until the Watchdog system dropped. That’s when frustration boiled over and players flooded the game with negative reviews.

[Fratman]

As the person who handles the Steam reviews for the most part, the majority of the feedback that we receive through negative reviews can be summed up as a general disappointment with 1.0. There were certain expectations with regards to the full release, which we simply did not manage to fulfill due to a variety of reasons. Bugs that were not fixed, features that were not implemented, existing features that are in need of a rework...all of those resulted in an experience that both old and new players did not find enjoyable.

However, we're listening closely to the community and are making plans to implement necessary changes that will significantly improve the game. Plans are put into motion and we can't wait to share more about what we have planned.

[CrankyOldMan]

Originally posted by Fratman:

As the person who handles the Steam reviews for the most part, the majority of the feedback that we receive through negative reviews can be summed up as a general disappointment with 1.0. There were certain expectations with regards to the full release, which we simply did not manage to fulfill due to a variety of reasons. Bugs that were not fixed, features that were not implemented, existing features that are in need of a rework...all of those resulted in an experience that both old and new players did not find enjoyable.

However, we're listening closely to the community and are making plans to implement necessary changes that will significantly improve the game. Plans are put into motion and we can't wait to share more about what we have planned.

IMO and I say this with sincerity:

You need to do two things along with everything else!
1. Take just a little more time right before you release an update and do greater in house game play to catch those bugs that are getting out or repeating themselves just from the changes made. Repeat bugs and releasing new bugs that they players know about just infuriates the player base and makes you guys look like you have no idea of what you are doing.
I know there will always be bugs in the new stuff, I am talking more about bugs that were squashed and now are repeated.

2. Please stop releasing the updates on a Thursday. That gives you only 1 day for the bug reports to come in and very little time to find out why and hot fix them before they mess up everyone's weekend! Please release on a Monday or Tuesday your updates going further!

[Core]

Watchdog system was probably their best decision. We don't need cheaters on EU and NA servers.

[PabloSpacebar]

I don’t think Scum deserves bad reviews. It’s an amazing game overall.
People are probably unhappy with certain mechanics like puppet spawns and new armed npc.
Armed ai is very bad and should’ve not been in game in this basic state. Puppet spawns are better but far from good and melee combat is just the worst i have ever seen.
Quick band aid for melee would be extending the reach of melee weapons and introducing puppet run speed slider (setting). They are too quick considering there is little to none defense mechanics for charging enemies.
At least if it was satisfying to bash them maybe it would be less annoying.
Ragdolling is made perfect but most melee weapons are next to unusable.

Yesterday I played again after 6 months and i was quite happy with most things. It feels good but there were few annoyances..
I played Sandbox on almost vanilla settings. For the sake of testing i have set puppet dmg to 0,5. The only change at the beginning.
(I have 2000+h in Scum, not a beginner)

Cons:
-exhaustion recovery is waay to slow, no one wants to play with friends and then be forced to wait for 20 min+ for recovery. (I ate a cooked meal, had water and a cigarette, rested on a bed). I’m not sure if that is connected to “metabolism speed” setting. If so, please advise what is an ok setting for quicker recovery.
- running with heavy item in hands (not logs) should allow short bursts of jog with a great stamina penalty. It’s weird that i can’t jog for at least 20m with a canister of gas or fertilizer.
- fainting when reaching new hyperthermia level needs to go or be pushed to c2. Maybe visual nausea or something but not this.
- armed npc’s have very bad ai. They get stuck on half meter of stonewall or sneak up on you and glitch out left and right. Lady with wooden sword creeped up to me and glitched out after a jumpscare, then followed me outside the shop (b4 city) without trying to swing. I had few more silent encounters in that town then switched them off. Not into jumpscare.
-fishing is ok but it needs fish to get tired over time.
-melee is very bad from hitbox to reach.
-puppets need to have earth’s gravitation and also vaulting windows is too quick. Maybe add a percentage that they trip over and fall or something
- gameplay is mostly limited on sneaking, bows and suppressed handgun. Other suppressed weapons attract a lot of heat. It’s a game, suppressors don’t need to be that realistic. If a have a suppressed rifle i should not attract heat from puppets.
Pros:
-hunting- i found few chickens and heard a donkey (didn’t follow it). It’s nice how you can follow tracks to locate animals but you can also find them by sound. Better than first implementation for sure.
-atmosphere is amazing and night is very well done now.
- clothes drying time is ok but drying rack and option to wring clothes is a must.
That’s it for now.

Scum is def a good game and it does not deserve bad reviews. But.. it needs some old problems solved and some gameplay goals added.

[codename.mute]

Originally posted by Fratman:

both old and new players did not find enjoyable.

I am a new player (post-1.0) and I enjoy SCUM a lot. Like, a lot a lot. However, this game could be even better still -- much much more so, and this feels frustrating, because the possibilities lay bare before you, but still out of reach.

90% of things the are wrong or missing should be crowdsourced, waiting decades for a thing you want -- and only if your wishes align with the dev team in the first place -- doesn't feel good, no. If you care at all about this game, mod support should be high on your list.

[White]

Originally posted by codename.mute:

Originally posted by Fratman:

both old and new players did not find enjoyable.

I am a new player (post-1.0) and I enjoy SCUM a lot. Like, a lot a lot. However, this game could be even better still -- much much more so, and this feels frustrating, because the possibilities lay bare before you, but still out of reach.

90% of things the are wrong or missing should be crowdsourced, waiting decades for a thing you want -- and only if your wishes align with the dev team in the first place -- doesn't feel good, no. If you care at all about this game, mod support should be high on your list.

You can enjoy zombies spawning on you out of thin air all you want, or hordes activated by zombies that see you from the distance through buildings (happened just yesterday, we were baffled), but they cut off a big part of the experience the game was centered on by making snipers and binoculars useless as a fact, as you can't scout any place beforehand - since it will always look empty.

Before you'd also find random lone zombies in the woods or remote areas, so it felt more alive (ironic since we talking about undead people) and a bit dangerous.
You'd also find animals, randomly, without the broken "hear verses from the wrong direction" minigame or that chicken that every time spawns aggroed by some zombies.

Game was better but you know only what you get now, which is worse, but still enjoyable in some other ways.

I know they did all this bs to relief servers from loading npcs everywhere, but it's not just an optimization it's a really fu***d up change

[MS. Green Label]

plus "secret bunkers" have no loot at all, at all, at all in the boxes but u might find 1 in 1 of the 4 locked cabinets

very poor

[codename.mute]

I wrote I think the game can be much much better, right? the only catch is, your better and my better are probably not the same.

Case in point, I don't understand the secret bunker lamentations. Yes, it's a sad place, but you get the card for free and there's basically zero risk going there. It's free loot (if not too rare), what are you complaining about?

[Sr. Morajsakom]

Originally posted by 莔:

Watchdog system – This targets high-ping players, but the devs completely ignored China, where players need a VPN to play properly, resulting in consistently high ping.

Isnt this a government issue, not a game issue? Blame needs to go elsewhere.

Youre chinese right? And if a big part of the playerbase is chinese, then thats just an obvious thing to happen, cant play a game you like, give negative review.

[Pargit bepita]

Originally posted by Fratman:

As the person who handles the Steam reviews for the most part, the majority of the feedback that we receive through negative reviews can be summed up as a general disappointment with 1.0. There were certain expectations with regards to the full release, which we simply did not manage to fulfill due to a variety of reasons. Bugs that were not fixed, features that were not implemented, existing features that are in need of a rework...all of those resulted in an experience that both old and new players did not find enjoyable.

However, we're listening closely to the community and are making plans to implement necessary changes that will significantly improve the game. Plans are put into motion and we can't wait to share more about what we have planned.

Thank you for the honesty.
So why call it 1.0?

[eighthwonderbeeton8]

It seems that players' evaluation of SCUM differs between multiplayer and sandbox.

I play in sandbox mode. I have played many other survival games and I think SCUM is a much better game than other survival games.

[drpad]

Originally posted by eighthwonderbeeton8:

It seems that players' evaluation of SCUM differs between multiplayer and sandbox.

I play in sandbox mode. I have played many other survival games and I think SCUM is a much better game than other survival games.

Indeed, I also play sandbox and, e.g., haven't encountered a lot of the weirdness many players from servers report.

[codename.mute]

"multiplayer" isn't one thing either. yes, what you think in general, and what annoys you in particular is very subjective and depends entirely on how you play the game.

Like, the crazy drift they fixed in the latest patch? I would leave it in personally, it made cross country so much more fun, but would I insist others should suffer for my fun? far be it from me.

This game HAS to be modular and highly adjustable, and the only way to achieve it is mod support.

[XEN5H1SX]

version 1.0.0.0 of this game is at best a preview of the preview of the release

[codename.mute]

version numbers don't mean anything. this isn't a server API where stability is a public contract, this is a rolling release video game where you get breaking changes with every hotfix 0.1, 1.0 or 999.9