DRG needs to take a step back

[SCPeach (Math Guy)]

I'm probably sacrificing my ability to speak here, but I was gonna do this on an alt on the subreddit but the post needed moderator approval so I knew that was gonna go nowhere. For the record, I was open about it being an alt in the post so I didn't look like I was trying to "deceive" anyone, and I don't want to endorse hate against GSG, so much so that I'm now putting my ability to speak here (and possibly steam privileges) on the line for it, using a name and pfp I use everywhere else, so here we go:

DRG, GSG, the playerbase alike and such, have problems. No big surprise, every game and its communities and devs do, but it's the problems themselves that are the real uhh, "problem". I've been discussing with friends, high skilled players, long time players, modders and communities I won't mention because they get mindlessly hated on as a result of it, and a lot are starting to avoid DRG or actively dislike it because of the state it has been in for a while now.

There was the modding drama, something that started in February and didn't get sorted out until August, with the result being very disappointing. During the whole time, people referencing a certain document kept getting warned and banned for breaking a rule against "name and shame" despite the document not naming anyone besides the devs and the person who made it. Hate was then spread against a certain large community of DRG purely because the owner who made it was a part of that community and had discussed it there, while the community itself was in no way having a hand in the matter or endorsing it.

The drama itself revolved around the owner of one of the most popular mods on DRG that was entirely designed and used for mod integration in the game for years, that being "GoldBlade" who owns "Mod hub", notably when he had decided to randomly add graphical features and gameplay changes to the mod, some of which did not fit the nature of a "Verified" mod and rather an "Approved" one, however the mod remained verified despite this, even though Gold was a moderator for DRG on the mod.io website itself. When people had pointed this out, he gave extremely limited and dismissive responses such as "lmao" or "lol", and after doing further work, had made snarky remarks about having done "weeks of testing in a single day". This prompted another moderator "AssemblyStorm" who also owns some widely known mods to make their own iteration of mod integration via an ingame menu called "Unified UI", and did so. Unfortunately, the Gold was very much upset about that, and then had falsely claimed that the new mod that had just been made was stealing assets and such from their mod, it was promptly taken down in less than a day of being online. Assembly was swiftly stripped of their position, removed from certain areas/communities and completely restricted on what they could do on mod.io, including comment on their own mods. The accusation of stolen assets was "proven" by showing in the code for UUI that there were folders with the name of Mod hub, however, these folders and their files were actually used as a way to integrate with the Mod hub and work with it, the same files and such that dozens or maybe hundreds of other mods use to work with said mod, these accusations were built on a lie that nobody with coding knowledge would immediately see, and that was abused.

During this whole scenario, players frustrated with the Mod hub decided to start rolling back to previous versions of the mod, Gold did not like this and promptly deleted all the archived versions of the mod on mod.io, then started threatening to ban people who shared any around. As more people started to speak up for Assembly, they too got silenced, restricted, banned and cut out. Any post mentioning this on the reddit would be taken down, and some users even banned. Players outside the modding community would only know what has been publicly told, which was mostly nothing, but partially what Gold's lies were. Players inside the modding community however were seeing this in the making, and their anger/hatred can be easily seen on Mod hub's page, any comment left by Gold has been severely downvoted, and the strong approval rating of the mod has declined to a still strong but notably worse 93%. Pleas were made for GSG to step in and they said they would "look into it", which lasted over half a year.

After this time, GSG finally made a slight verdict on the situation, stating they would take modding approval into their own hands now, rather than at the work of volunteers, this would presumably mean Gold is not in charge anymore. However besides that, there has been nothing else, Assembly and their friends have not had their restrictions and such removed, nor an apology, neither has anyone else in the community. There has been no admission of wrongdoing on GSG's part or Gold's part. Since then, dozens of high tier modders have stopped working on DRG mods using the official integration, most stopping entirely, a few relying on other non-official modding clients using the raw mod files. More and more people keep dropping out every day, some even refusing to play the game entirely. Lots of mods now no longer have support, which is becoming worse as more updates release and break them. Users feasibly cannot ask the owners for help or updates because they're simply not there or refuse to anymore.

Relating to this, there are several basic QOL features and such from verified mods that undeniably should be in the game but GSG don't add them, sometimes outright refusing to for no apparent reasoning. "Weapon Heat Crosshair" is the 4th most popular mod for DRG because it is much better for watching weapon heat compared to staring at certain indicators on the weapon that sometimes aren't pointing towards you and are actively moving around. Health and shield numbers is the 11th most popular mod on DRG because it allows you to see the actual values of your health and shield obviously, as opposed to roughly estimating with the bars alone. And there's just much more mods that are awaiting to become basegame features much like Angled Drills did all those years ago. One of these is autosprint, there are currently 2 mods for it, since the first one can sometimes break, always breaks in the spacerig when switching class, has had crashes related to picking up items before, and cannot be used with the second wind perk. The 2nd mod while breaking a lot less often, breaks harder when it does and still does not work with the second wind perk, with the owner now actively refusing to work with DRG modding anymore over their own frustration with it and remarking that the developers supposedly refuse to do simple things for the quality of life of the game. The topic of autosprint has been brought up hundreds of times before, and each time it is responded with supposedly 1 of the developers being actively against the addition for no apparent reason provided at all. Even if there is a reason, it seems as though it does not affect the majority of players at all because they haven't mentioned it themself, but it does affect the majority of players that want autosprint or use the mods, especially when those mods break and lose support.

A sub-part of all of this is the flawed moderation system of DRG. The developers put in a system a long time ago in which the host cannot kick players once the objective has been filled as to not troll the rest of the lobby by kicking them once the objective is done. However, this causes another big problem, if a troll waits for this to happen, they can then sabotage the mission to their heart's content, and if they successfully cause the rest of the lobby to be downed and without iron will, it is completely out of the host's and lobby's hands what the troll can do, and this has happened to me before. Yes it can come down to the lobby fighting back, but the aggressor almost always wins, as nobody wants to run a suboptimal loadout that is good for pvp in the off chance it happens, but trolls will happily run a suboptimal loadout if it means it helps them screw you over as easily as possible, including the likes of C4, hyper propellant, fat boy, super cooling chamber, elephant rounds and such. In the event of what this system actually helps, it can be easily circumvented by the host simply banning players pre-emptively as they near the end of the objective or even when the players pick up the final amount needed to complete it, but it's not like you can say "please nobody kill each other" every time you press the button and hope it actually does something.

Season 5 has been a slippery slope, some new overclock additions were very welcome, some very much weren't, nor were some of season 5's actual content. The "Burst Fire" overclock is widely known for being a joke and a downgrade, it appears to be entirely balanced around lower hazard levels while not accounting for how it works at higher ones, which it doesn't, it is undeniably a downgrade. The core stone event had gone extremely long without any changes to how overtuned it was, presumably having the same problem as Burst Fire where it was only balanced with lower hazard levels in mind, it has been known to be extremely tedious and difficult on higher hazard levels even to skilled players, and eventually the majority had shunned it and started to avoid it. However a known bypass had come around, an exploit with gunner's shield to completely skip the event while getting the core stone reward. However, GSG eventually came down on this and removed it, with negative and strong wording in the patch notes about it "ruining the event" when the players found the event itself was ruining their games, GSG has sought to fix the exploit before making the event actually bearable. They did release an update to minorly nerf it, but after the exploit was removed, some players still avoid the event.

Now for bugs, DRG has a lot of them, some for several years and have gone an unfair amount of time without a fix. ECR LOK-1 builds still do not work with super blowthrough, gunner's shield will not recharge his personal shield if he stands ontop of it when it deploys, 2-shot burst on the Subata does not work with the full auto overclock, the recent "fix" for AG Mixture on the sludge pump only fixed 1 problem out of the several it had and retains, huuli hoarders still get aggrevated out of nowhere for no reason, floating spikes left from minerals are still a thing, the grappling hook has been broken since the launch of the game, players will rarely sometimes start spinning in the spacerig and cannot stop until the lobby is reopened or the mission starts, there's so much more. GSG recently moved to a new website for bug reports called "Betahub", some people have assumed they are supposedly "running away from the year old bugs", I won't make a comment, but I will on their premise on the website. They had tested the website by reporting a bug themself, was the bug one that directly affects and harms gameplay? No it was not, it was instead one about players being able to jump out of a leaving drop pod, mainly with the help of a zipline, one that lots of players actively do because it's fun and doesn't harm the experience, unless you count a very small survival bonus or maybe 0-10xp/credits from the extra kills they get as harmful, GSG would supposedly sooner fix this than other bugs, or even make it a part of the game by having it not count the extra kills and making it doable for all classes without equipment needed and have it not count you as dead when you do it, I feel lots of players would enjoy doing this.

This is all I can think of at the given moment, there's definitely a lot more to say but this is it

[Zargothrax]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

Learn to see the good and stop criticizing the bad because the bad will always be there.

That's an incredibly toxic mindset. Ignoring something bad only serves to cultivate it, and unquestioningly praising something good can blind you to the bad surrounding it.

[Abjuration]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Zargothrax:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

Learn to see the good and stop criticizing the bad because the bad will always be there.

That's an incredibly toxic mindset. Ignoring something bad only serves to cultivate it, and unquestioningly praising something good can blind you to the bad surrounding it.

That is absolutely right, but it is for politics, economy, enterprises, jobs, how society works etc...
NOT FOR ART.

[Chibbity]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SCPeach #TransRights:

I very specifically said adding loads would be a bad idea and only a few should, no idea where you're getting this from

I was neither talking to you, nor about you.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SCPeach #TransRights:

Like make another overtuned that they take too long to do anything about, half the time cause they don't have high hazard balancing in mind?

Not really sure what you're trying to say here, but I'm pretty sure it's a tangent that has zero to do with the conversation at hand; so I'l ignore it.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SCPeach #TransRights:

What Scout said, we don't have that stuff. A mod for something is not a solution, it's a workaround, and plenty of issues come from that.

If modding isn't a solution then I take it you won't mind if they remove modding support from the game?

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SCPeach #TransRights:

And you're ignoring counter arguments for why qol mods should be basegame if they're good enough. I mean come on, console players literally can't access mods, that's reason enough, let alone the others provided.

Am I? I don't think I've ignored anyone, but if I missed someone's comment I apologize; I'm just one guy though. I'm sorry, but literally no one cares about console players, and Mod.io supports modding on console anyways, it's just never been enabled, because again...no one cares about console players; even the dev's lol.

[Zargothrax]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

That is absolutely right, but it is for politics, economy, enterprises, jobs, how society works etc...
NOT FOR ART.

Yea, no. Thinking that about anything is toxic, especially if you try to cherry-pick with it.

[Frisky]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

Here we go again lol...gamers pretending to be game developers.
If the developers view of the game is, for example, "you need to keep an eye on the physical weapon to control heat, not in the UI" then THAT'S THE GAME.

You are not entitled to change the developers view because they are the creators, they are the artists, you, we, are just gamers so you either like their view, or you can very easily play a different game. Or just adapt to the game you love.

Stop pretending to be creators and artists. We are gamers, and we need to RESPECT THE VISION of the people who created the game we love.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

"I love that song, but heck I really hate the guitar solo. Please community, convince the artist to re-make the song without the solo"
Just because you're big in numbers doesn't absolutely make you in the right.

It's so easy to criticize, but you wouldn't have the slightest idea on how to even start creating something from scratch.
Learn to respect the vision of people who gave you something that you love.
Learn to see the good and stop criticizing the bad because the bad will always be there.
It's impossible to make everyone happy.

I've seen some bad takes on my time on these forums

but wow, I think this might just blow all of them out of the water

people are free and encouraged to give feedback, criticism is what leads to improvement and there are dozens of examples of it leading to improvements in games, obviously there is both good and bad criticism but I would never put "these improvements to the UI would be beneficial for the game" as bad feedback

just saying no one should ever point out flaws because flaws will always exist is a horrible way to view anything let alone game development, think about if people didn't push back against bad choice made by developers, think about things like the star wars battlefront 2 lootbox protests leading to predatory microtransactions being removed from the game, and Ik some are a bit tired of hearing this game get brought up and I'm sorry for doing so but it's a huge and relevant example, but helldivers 2 was massively saved by people's critics of the devs questionable balance decisions and is a heavily improved game because of it

is everyone held your mindset of just complying with any choice a game developer,publisher, or studio made the games industry would be an even bigger dumpster fire than we could ever comprehend

[Abjuration]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Frisky:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

Here we go again lol...gamers pretending to be game developers.
If the developers view of the game is, for example, "you need to keep an eye on the physical weapon to control heat, not in the UI" then THAT'S THE GAME.

You are not entitled to change the developers view because they are the creators, they are the artists, you, we, are just gamers so you either like their view, or you can very easily play a different game. Or just adapt to the game you love.

Stop pretending to be creators and artists. We are gamers, and we need to RESPECT THE VISION of the people who created the game we love.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

"I love that song, but heck I really hate the guitar solo. Please community, convince the artist to re-make the song without the solo"
Just because you're big in numbers doesn't absolutely make you in the right.

It's so easy to criticize, but you wouldn't have the slightest idea on how to even start creating something from scratch.
Learn to respect the vision of people who gave you something that you love.
Learn to see the good and stop criticizing the bad because the bad will always be there.
It's impossible to make everyone happy.

I've seen some bad takes on my time on these forums

but wow, I think this might just blow all of them out of the water

people are free and encouraged to give feedback, criticism is what leads to improvement and there are dozens of examples of it leading to improvements in games, obviously there is both good and bad criticism but I would never put "these improvements to the UI would be beneficial for the game" as bad feedback

just saying no one should ever point out flaws because flaws will always exist is a horrible take, think about if people didn't push back against bad choice made by developers, think about things like the star wars battlefront 2 lootbox protests leading to predatory microtransactions, and Ik some are a bit tired of hearing this game get brought up and I'm sorry for doing so but it's a huge and relevant example, but helldivers 2 was massively saved by people's critics of the devs questionable balance decisions and is a heavily improved game because of it

is everyone held your mindset of just complying with any choice a game developer,publisher, or studio made the games industry would be an even bigger dumpster fire than we could ever comprehend

Bad choices from devs? You don't like those devs and don't purchase their products. It's simple, just like it's simple for you to know what singers\bands you like, and those you don't.
Far more good takes than bad ones from devs? Then you support them and point out what seems bad for you. But you don't go against them because you need to respect the fact that they released a product you love and enjoy.
There must be loyalty toward people who created something that gave you emotions. You don't upset a community against them because of the things you would like to be changed, momentarily forgetting the other 80-90% that you love of the product they created for you.

Constructive comments are surely appreciated. But these "communities" nowadays can really create way more damage than you can imagine, if people use the wrong words.

[SCPeach (Math Guy)]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Frisky:

I've seen some bad takes on my time on these forums

but wow, I think this might just blow all of them out of the water

people are free and encouraged to give feedback, criticism is what leads to improvement and there are dozens of examples of it leading to improvements in games, obviously there is both good and bad criticism but I would never put "these improvements to the UI would be beneficial for the game" as bad feedback

just saying no one should ever point out flaws because flaws will always exist is a horrible take, think about if people didn't push back against bad choice made by developers, think about things like the star wars battlefront 2 lootbox protests leading to predatory microtransactions, and Ik some are a bit tired of hearing this game get brought up and I'm sorry for doing so but it's a huge and relevant example, but helldivers 2 was massively saved by people's critics of the devs questionable balance decisions and is a heavily improved game because of it

is everyone held your mindset of just complying with any choice a game developer,publisher, or studio made the games industry would be an even bigger dumpster fire than we could ever comprehend

Bad choices from devs? You don't like those devs and don't purchase their products. It's simple, just like it's simple for you to know what singers\bands you like, and those you don't.
Far more good takes than bad ones from devs? Then you support them and point out what seems bad for you. But you don't go against them because you need to respect the fact that they released a product you love and enjoy.
There must be loyalty toward people who created something that gave you emotions. You don't upset a community against them because of the things you would like to be changed, momentarily forgetting the other 80-90% that you love of the product they created for you.

Constructive comments are surely appreciated. But these "communities" nowadays can really create way more damage than you can imagine, if people use the wrong words.

I do like the devs, never said I don't, I've actively payed for the supporter packs because of it, so no, you don't get to decide whether or not my criticism means I hate them. Comparing a years old game to an artist and music is an awful comparison, it would only make the slight amount of sense if it was that I liked the artist for years and they suddenly switched from like K-pop to reggae or something, that would be really weird, and even then that's still hardly similar, you can respect the artist's decisions but for game devs, it's a whole other thing. You're well within your right to think Blizzard are terrible because of what they did to Overwatch 2

[Frisky]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

Bad choices from devs? You don't like those devs and don't purchase their products. It's simple, just like it's simple for you to know what singers\bands you like, and those you don't.
Far more good takes than bad ones from devs? Then you support them and point out what seems bad for you. But you don't go against them because you need to respect the fact that they released a product you love and enjoy.

it's not as black and white as you seem to paint it, people can love a product and still point out it's glaring flaws or issues they have with it

throwing out feedback on a problem you have with the game isn't """going against them""" it's wanting to see the game improve, even if you don't agree with it personally they have a right to make their case and state their opinions

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

There must be loyalty toward people who created something that gave you emotions. You don't upset a community against them because of the things you would like to be changed, momentarily forgetting the other 80-90% that you love of the product they created for you.

no
no one owes a developer, brand, or company anything purely because they made something they enjoyed, sure they can act that way but at the end of the day blindly swearing yourself to them saying that they can't do any wrong and that they're flaws are totally fine to be ignored because it'll never be perfect is not a good mindset, having a one-sided relationship like that with a developer is not a healthy thing to do at all

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

Constructive comments are surely appreciated. But these "communities" nowadays can really create way more damage than you can imagine, if people use the wrong words.

and thats exactly what people here are doing, providing constructive feedback on why they feel these improvements are important to them, thats the entire point of making threads and discussions, hell it's a huge reason why we have discussion forums to begin with

[babuk.fracal]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Zargothrax:

That's an incredibly toxic mindset. Ignoring something bad only serves to cultivate it, and unquestioningly praising something good can blind you to the bad surrounding it.

That is absolutely right, but it is for politics, economy, enterprises, jobs, how society works etc...
NOT FOR ART.

Drg is part of entertainment.

[Chibbity]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

If the developers view of the game is, for example, "you need to keep an eye on the physical weapon to control heat, not in the UI" then THAT'S THE GAME.

I mean...he has a valid theoretical point.

If GSG literally responded to this thread and said "yeah, we discussed it among ourselves, and we all agree that a UI based heat meter is not in the spirit of what we envisioned for DRG; so we won't be adding it. We want players using the physical meter on the model itself."

Would you guys respect that decision?

[babuk.fracal]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Chibbity:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

If the developers view of the game is, for example, "you need to keep an eye on the physical weapon to control heat, not in the UI" then THAT'S THE GAME.

I mean...he has a valid theoretical point.

If GSG literally responded to this thread and said "yeah, we discussed it among ourselves, and we all agree that a UI based heat meter is not in the spirit of what we envisioned for DRG; so we won't be adding it. We want players using the physical meter on the model itself."

Would you guys respect that decision?

I doubt I am talking for others but, a confirmation from the devs would at least be something I can accept.

Instead we are just in this situation where we dont know and can't have a final conclusion about this.

[Frisky]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Chibbity:

I mean...he has a valid theoretical point.

If GSG literally responded to this thread and said "yeah, we discussed it among ourselves, and we all agree that a UI based heat meter is not in the spirit of what we envisioned for DRG; so we won't be adding it. We want players using the physical meter on the model itself."

Would you guys respect that decision?

respect it? yes

agree with it and never critic it again? not at all

so I guess it depends what you mean by respect

funny enough they already made a statement about not wanting to add weapon heat meter that I was already aware of, doesn't mean I'm gonna change my whole opinion that the heat meter in vanilla is terrible even if I know it won't be changed, nor does it mean I'll not bring up my thoughts on it where relevant, I'm still free to do so

[Abjuration]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Frisky:

having a one-sided relationship like that with a developer is not a healthy thing to do at all

Look man, I honestly don't think gamers should have any kind of relationship with developers a part from either purchasing and playing their games, or not purchasing and not playing.
A simple thumb up, or thumb down.
A simple, yes, I listen to this band's songs because I like them and I will keep listening as long as they make songs I like. Once they change route, change sound, I won't listen to them anymore. I won't purchase from them anymore.

In my view, developers are artists. And you either like it or don't. You don't shape artists for your tastes.
It's impossible to shape a product that will be loved and appreciated by everyone.
These kind of talks\posts are and will always be a neverending story.

[SCPeach (Math Guy)]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Chibbity:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Abjuration:

If the developers view of the game is, for example, "you need to keep an eye on the physical weapon to control heat, not in the UI" then THAT'S THE GAME.

I mean...he has a valid theoretical point.

If GSG literally responded to this thread and said "yeah, we discussed it among ourselves, and we all agree that a UI based heat meter is not in the spirit of what we envisioned for DRG; so we won't be adding it. We want players using the physical meter on the model itself."

Would you guys respect that decision?

I'd respect I can't do anything about it, I'd still call it crap though

[Bookslayer10]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Chibbity:

If GSG literally responded to this thread and said "yeah, we discussed it among ourselves, and we all agree that a UI based heat meter is not in the spirit of what we envisioned for DRG; so we won't be adding it. We want players using the physical meter on the model itself."

Would you guys respect that decision?

I guess so, yeah.