Game nerfing thoughts

[Shady]

The developers are ruining this game because they keep making adjustments based on the way streamers play.

Streamers play this game for several hours a day, most of them with anywhere from 15-50 million dollars on their accounts. They max out the tents, blinds and tripods and start slaughtering everything on the map. A lot of these streamers have 20-50 great ones in their lodges, and already have the new great one moose.

Since the last update, if you fire a gun, animals spook at a much closer distance. My guess is, the developers are nerfing the game because of the way streamers play. They did this with Canadian geese not too long ago. Some streamer slaughters a thousand geese in 20 minutes, and ruins the game for the rest of us.

Most of us don't have 8 hours a day to sit and play this game. I have $40,000 on my account, and am constantly going broke because tripods and tents are so expensive. Couple that with a new map that has over 50 bodies of water, not including the rivers (which wrap around the entire reserve), and I already can't afford to set up on the new map.

99% of the community do not spend as much time playing as the streamers, and it's becoming increasingly less fun to hunt because they keep nerfing everything, and making it more difficult.

When you make the game harder for the power users, you're making it exponentially more difficult for the casual player. Ironically, the power users don't even care. They've already got 50 million dollars on their accounts. But for the rest of us, we are playing a game that's more difficult than the game they were playing when they earned all of that money to begin with.

The power users are always going to find exploits, and have everything possible. Ignore them. Focus on making the game enjoyable for the majority of us.

[Forgy]

I just bought this game and the amount of time it takes to get anything done is absurd. I want an arcade hunting game.

[Vertumage]

I agree. I'm pretty casual at this game and I'm to the point of not playing it anymore. I don't want to sink 4 hours a day into this game just to barely level up. I want to hop on, MAYBE 30 mins to an hour, level up a few levels, and play and have a jolly old time hunting. This goes beyond "simulation" into hardmode territory. Hence the dumb "simulation" vs "aracade". It's clearly a simulation SLASH arcade shooter. Hell you have a scoreboard. If it was purely simulation it would be far more bare bones with no perks and skills. I just wanna have fun. Not be a hardcore gamer.

[Shady]

Originally posted by Smegal:

I agree. I'm pretty casual at this game and I'm to the point of not playing it anymore. I don't want to sink 4 hours a day into this game just to barely level up. I want to hop on, MAYBE 30 mins to an hour, level up a few levels, and play and have a jolly old time hunting. This goes beyond "simulation" into hardmode territory. Hence the dumb "simulation" vs "aracade". It's clearly a simulation SLASH arcade shooter. Hell you have a scoreboard. If it was purely simulation it would be far more bare bones with no perks and skills. I just wanna have fun. Not be a hardcore gamer.

I think the dev's are paying far too much attention to the way streamers play, and are adapting the game to their play styles. I see no other reason why they would change the spook distance, unless the dev's are watching these guys/girls kill several thousand animals in a grind over the course of a few days, and are not liking what they see.

The problem is, it would cost me about $250,000 to set up tents and blinds on New England to even begin to grind in the first place. I obviously can't afford to do that, but the streamers can. They can still do it. So it makes it a little more difficult for the power users, and A LOT harder for us.

[Tigershark1968]

I just started playing this game a couple of weeks ago. I saw the game for a few days before the nerfing and I loved it. I completely agree. I am hunting by stalking and doing it with basic gear, which makes it near impossible to earn enough money to upgrade a thing. They have made this game a terrible grind game for us new to the game and playing this the way the developers originally imagined. I hate how cheaters and exploiters ruin it for all of us. Forza 5 got destroyed by exploiters, the game is nearly dead and I fear the same might happen to this game. Please reverse the nerfing patches.

[Shady]

Originally posted by Forgy:

I just bought this game and the amount of time it takes to get anything done is absurd. I want an arcade hunting game.

This game can be that, if you learn the mechanics. I commented on one of your other posts on another thread, but I'm not really sure how much you already know about the game. If you have any questions, just ask.

[Solaris]

a real hunt take MUCH more time than in this game ,

to be a good stalker you need a few skills up to max ,
i love stalker and i hunt always with bows apart when a quest ask me to do something with other weapons
is a game of patience , if you dont have patience and you want to level up fast , play something else

[ExpatSooner]

I think EW has forgotten who exactly butters their bread. Its people like me. I'm not a streamer. I'm a guy with a day job, wife and kids. I have been playing for over four years and poured almost 1150 hours into this because it's how I relax at the end of the day after the work is done and the kids off to bed. I have bought every piece of DLC they've churned out and liked most of it. But, with the granite update, I don't want to play anymore.

I'm not the best hunter. I only have 30 or 35 diamonds which is roughly one every 40 hours or so and I have never even seen great one tracks on my maps. I'd miss shots, but I still enjoyed getting out on the reserve and seeing what I could find and shoot. Now, the guns seem weaker, and the animals seemingly have supernatural senses and leave the scene before I can see much less shoot at them. I can't even use the .22 to alert animals facing the wrong direction for an ethical shot without everything taking off leaving me empty handed. The game is hard enough without this crap. This "update" has taken the fun out of the game for me.

EW needs to learn the streamers are not the ones paying their bills. It's middle age guys like me who just want to wonder around the land shooting animals when we cannot do it IRL for various reasons (I live in a country where firearm ownership is extremely restricted, not the UK).

Please change it back to the way it was before when we could enjoy wandering the beautiful landscapes you created and taking animals as we saw them. Tracking them down to their dens or waiting at their favorite watering holes with the hopes of maybe, possibly seeing a diamond potential animal.

EW, stop taking this game so seriously. You've made a silly, arcade style hunting game people really enjoyed playing and looked forward to buying new DLC to expand upon. It was never that realistic in the first place so nerfing it making it harder for casual players to enjoy so you can punish streamers is just a financially dumb because you'll chase out paying players like me. You give the DLC to the streamers for free while I and many others have shelled out our hard-earned cash to buy your product. The absolute least you can do is listen to the people who are spending money. Let the streamers and YouTubers get all the diamonds and Great Ones they want because it reminds players like me that while to do so is possible it's just not very probable.

[david.hardie]

Originally posted by gajo808:

a real hunt take MUCH more time than in this game ,

to be a good stalker you need a few skills up to max ,
i love stalker and i hunt always with bows apart when a quest ask me to do something with other weapons
is a game of patience , if you dont have patience and you want to level up fast , play something else

But thats the issue. People who got the game early ENJOYED that happy time. You guys got your levels and equipment.
For new players coming in the grind is horrific.

[Soltyk]

Originally posted by david.hardie:

But thats the issue. People who got the game early ENJOYED that happy time. You guys got your levels and equipment.
For new players coming in the grind is horrific.

The game was much harder in the past, before the weapon dlcs came out. It was also a better game, without tripods and semi-auto military style weapons.

[david.hardie]

Originally posted by Soltyk:

Originally posted by david.hardie:

But thats the issue. People who got the game early ENJOYED that happy time. You guys got your levels and equipment.
For new players coming in the grind is horrific.

The game was much harder in the past, before the weapon dlcs came out. It was also a better game, without tripods and semi-auto military style weapons.

How long have those been out?

[Mai Dixie Normous]

what is the point of nerfing anything anyways?
I mean its basically a sp game with a co op mp so who cares if someone can kill 4000 ducks in 10 mins, if i were the devs that is

[elawrence]

Shady and ExpatSooner, you make very good points.

I've got about 500 hours in the game, and purchased most of the DLCs. I've really enjoyed this game which combines really beautiful sceneries and bouts of exciting action.

But I've also found that things are not quite as fun lately. Detection ranges for some animals (maybe not all of them) seem a bit out of whack. I could also swear that spawn rates and/or spawn mechanics have been altered somehow, though of course this is hard to prove objectively.

As I've said elsewhere, it's a bit odd to me that I can easily track and kill a 400kg+ moose, but struggle to find and kill rabbits, raccoons or any of the new game birds. Some of the animals seem to detect me from roughly 150 yards or so away, when I walk downwind from them. The game birds chirp, and then seemingly take off without a sound (and I never see them either, most of the time). IMO, these animals, while still somewhat difficult to hit due to their small size, should still be easier to hunt than larger game. If only because smaller game should be way more plentiful (in an arcade style hunting game anyway) than large mammals.

I used to enjoy setting up decoys for duck hunting, but because of how hunting pressure works, I've just stopped. It's just too damn tedious to manually deploy and retrieve decoys, and I also do not have the funds to start buying tons of decoys either.

I really hope that EW changes direction. As the others have said, it really wouldn't be the first game to be ruined because of streamers and 'full-time' players...

[The*Broken*Clock]

I don't know why they changed it, but I agree it's just not enjoyable anymore since the update. I have logged nearly 1500 hours over 4 years and own all the dlc and I have been grinding for a great one every evening for the past several months (which was already enough of a slog for the casual player before the update), but I am setting it aside until something changes. If nothing changes then I guess I'm done with it. I bought the new england map but I haven't even opened it and don't plan to do so; I regret buying it. For months I could put on a podcast and play cotw to wind down after work, after putting the kids to bed; but last night I found myself scrolling through my library looking for a game that no longer exists. Ended up just going to bed early. Guess the only hunt I'm on is for a new game ☹️

[Solaris]

Originally posted by Forgy:

I just bought this game and the amount of time it takes to get anything done is absurd. I want an arcade hunting game.

when i started it was crazy hard, i bought the game +/- 3 years ago and i spend most of my time walking
you have no skills , you make to much noise and your rifle suck

to start with: get easy xp by unlocking all the POI , invest skill points into : reduce noise and reduce visibility
scout all the animals zones
get a better riffle and start shooting anything you see from 150 meters to get more xp/money

as soon as you got decent stalker skills get into bows , so your hunting pressure will be basically not happening

ATV should be on the base game but is not on the PC version (not cool)
i bought it after some time because it reduce the POI scouting so much that is crucial to have it unfortunately

now with a bow +perks and my super silent stalking is much much better

i just did a run after 6 months without playing, i dont see any difference on the basic gameplay
but i have no interest on scores and ultra rare animals
and i have no problems with hunting pressure or scared animals with the bow

[astreamuser]

@OP: I'm not sure i understand the logic here. So because the game was nerfed because streamers go crazy with their kills, the game has become harder for casual players?. Casual players don't spend a lot of time playing games, they don't care about collecting trophies and such, they don't care about losing, they don't even care about learning how to play. So how does this change affect them? Anyone who cares about these things is by definition not a casual player.