Last Tide's Future + FAQ

[KingJackaL]

Here is an update with what is going on for Last Tide, it is long overdue and for that we are sorry. We have been deciding what to do next with Last Tide. The launch went OK, we had enough players to fill servers, and most people were happy with the game (about 80% in Steam reviews). Once we were no longer the 'fresh new game' we lost most of our visibility and sales slowed, but they were still OK. The real issue was when we hit a point where servers were not filling up, leading to increased refunds, which resulted in even less players. Since then Last Tide has not been profitable. Right now, it would be easier and cheaper to turn off the servers and shut down Last Tide - but all is not yet lost! We would like to use Last Tide as a starting point to try new, experimental game ideas. Some players who liked the original pure battle royale may find this upsetting. We understand that the game changing is frustrating. We believe changing the game and making something new out of Last Tide is better than shutting everything down.

Most of the core of the game remains the same. You can fight against divers and sharks underwater in a massive world. The weapons and equipment are staying, the world is staying - and more will be coming!

Where has Battle Royale gone?

Although many of you liked the original mode, it required a large player pool that we could not maintain.

Why not go F2P?

Going F2P requires extensive microtransaction systems. Without these we can't afford the new costs due to the larger player numbers (eg: support and anti-cheat are two areas that become much tougher with F2P). Building these is a lot of work, and we'd prefer to spend our limited resources on improving the game rather than monetization.

Why no marketing?

Money. We are still a small studio and we tend to want to put our resources in making the best games that we can. We did send over 2,500 emails with keys to influencers, and received a good amount of coverage, but this wasn't enough.

Why did you increase the price?

We know this seems counter-intuitive when we need more players. Our launch price was a mistake and too low. It gave us no head room to do discounts and not enough margin for advertising. It also didn't cover the costs of refunds, as when a player refunds it actually costs us money.

So what are you doing with Last Tide?

There are lots of good directions to head in with Last Tide. Instead of giving up and shutting down, we are going to take some time to experiment with new ideas (eg: Hunt). We're continuing to build and improve the game, and are listening to your feedback. So jump into the Discord Server or Steam Forums to have your say - we're taking it all in.

How will Hunt change?

We'll be listening to player feedback for where to move things during Early Access. Here are some up-coming changes we're working on for Hunt:

• Rare sharks spawns
  
• Improved shark AI
  
• Storage Lockers
  
• Diver AI
  
• Daily Quests

[Erlian]

Thanks for the communication. You're right, I do find this frustrating, and I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people who own Last Tide do, if they haven't already stopped playing and/or refunded. Mistakes were made that cost us a really enjoyable game.

As one of the players that got to enjoy the game in its early stages with full servers, with groups of great folks on the Discord.. I was super disappointed when numbers started dwindling. We all were.

I found scaling the zone size to # of players to be a smart response to diminishing server counts. It livened the game up and put more pressure on players to loot and get a move on, leading to more fights.

Then part of the community was upset with the change and we went back to having this big, diverless map for most of the game, accentuating the weaknesses of Last Tide - the large map size and low visibility leading to few fights. The tedium of repeatedly fighting sharks and swimming in a straight line towards the pod launcher / zone - every single game. Further decreasing player counts made these faults more pronounced, making the experience worse for everyone.

The low move speed, lack of modes of transportation, and overall lack of urgency made the game 30% looting simulator, followed by a 60% swim + fight sharks segment, followed by 10% of time spent in 1-2 actual PVP fights, the main meat of the game that previously took up maybe 33% of the time played. Players rightly grew bored and left/refunded. I started playing a bit less.

Meanwhile we were getting new pod skins and weapons, and a Megalodon. Cool, but nothing was addressing this problem of how time was spent ingame with low player counts, and new features weren't going to attract new players if even existing players were getting bored and leaving.

The game was making a bad impression on prospective players.

This whole time, VOIP wasn't in the game. All kinds of marketing happened, with the emails and keys sent out to streamers/influencers, without VOIP implemented.

New player experience was awful bc no one understood how things worked or where to find items. There was no way to communicate beyond pinging the map. Adding people on steam and/or getting on Discord was the only way, and even this was a tedious process. I can see how new players would have gotten frustrated and stopped playing/refunded. Cooperating on a team was part of what made the game fun, and that was impossible without any way of communicating.

------------------------------------------

Finally, to fix the boring parts of the game (and prevent owners from having a valid reason to refund / maybe even bring in some new players ?) we have Hunt:

25% looting, 70% slaughtering slightly less predictable, more numerous wall-clipping sharks, and at most 5% fighting other players. If you've amassed enough Pod tokens because you've been farming for the past 3 hours, you can even avoid PVP altogether by watching where the other players are and podding away from them!

Most (all?) owners of the game bought it when it was a BR. We didn't refund before the 2hr period because there was some nice PVP-oriented action potential to it. We had fun with chumnade spamming and ink nade tactics and speargun headshots and grapple+bangstick combo kills. We dm'd each other "good fight."

Now, Last Tide is a shark farming simulator and I'm pretty sad about it. I'm glad I got to enjoy the game while it was good and sorry for those who probably never will.

[President Monokotil]

i bought this game to playing battle royale mode with my friend, but what i found is this annoying Hunt event
if is there where i can refund it, i will do it

[SkieLet'sON]

Совет разрабам, сделайте выбор режимов!!!!

[Shuggle]

I never bought the game because of low player numbers, but i hope your studio does recover and i wish the best for your future.

[Carsonaut]

Love you, devs. Thank you for providing me with my favorite BR experience.

[Pizza Salmonelli]

ty, devs now there are up to 50 players in one lobby.. and if the day ends the BR is really fun

[Slim Dusty]

Originally posted by Library_of_Babel:

ty, devs now there are up to 50 players in one lobby.. and if the day ends the BR is really fun

Sadly i think you will find most of them are the new bots they have placed in. It ise to be if you killed a diver and it did not get downed it was a bot but apparently the bots get downed now and of you get them back up they team up with you.

[Monatsbinde]

Originally posted by KingJackaL:

Here is an update with what is going on for Last Tide, it is long overdue and for that we are sorry. We have been deciding what to do next with Last Tide. The launch went OK, we had enough players to fill servers, and most people were happy with the game (about 80% in Steam reviews). Once we were no longer the 'fresh new game' we lost most of our visibility and sales slowed, but they were still OK. The real issue was when we hit a point where servers were not filling up, leading to increased refunds, which resulted in even less players. Since then Last Tide has not been profitable. Right now, it would be easier and cheaper to turn off the servers and shut down Last Tide - but all is not yet lost! We would like to use Last Tide as a starting point to try new, experimental game ideas. Some players who liked the original pure battle royale may find this upsetting. We understand that the game changing is frustrating. We believe changing the game and making something new out of Last Tide is better than shutting everything down.

Most of the core of the game remains the same. You can fight against divers and sharks underwater in a massive world. The weapons and equipment are staying, the world is staying - and more will be coming!

Where has Battle Royale gone?

Although many of you liked the original mode, it required a large player pool that we could not maintain.

Why not go F2P?

Going F2P requires extensive microtransaction systems. Without these we can't afford the new costs due to the larger player numbers (eg: support and anti-cheat are two areas that become much tougher with F2P). Building these is a lot of work, and we'd prefer to spend our limited resources on improving the game rather than monetization.

Why no marketing?

Money. We are still a small studio and we tend to want to put our resources in making the best games that we can. We did send over 2,500 emails with keys to influencers, and received a good amount of coverage, but this wasn't enough.

Why did you increase the price?

We know this seems counter-intuitive when we need more players. Our launch price was a mistake and too low. It gave us no head room to do discounts and not enough margin for advertising. It also didn't cover the costs of refunds, as when a player refunds it actually costs us money.

So what are you doing with Last Tide?

There are lots of good directions to head in with Last Tide. Instead of giving up and shutting down, we are going to take some time to experiment with new ideas (eg: Hunt). We're continuing to build and improve the game, and are listening to your feedback. So jump into the Discord Server or Steam Forums to have your say - we're taking it all in.

How will Hunt change?

We'll be listening to player feedback for where to move things during Early Access. Here are some up-coming changes we're working on for Hunt:

• Rare sharks spawns
  
• Improved shark AI
  
• Storage Lockers
  
• Diver AI
  
• Daily Quests

It is no wonder u lost it all. The community told u it needs a solo play mode. U ignored it. U completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ it up on ur own fault and now player like me( who rly loved the best br game ever made) are absolutely betrayed because we all told u so. whatever u guys madu ur money, thats all that counts, isn`t it?

[SeanXD]

Lol. Wanna calm down there, bud.

[Slim Dusty]

Originally posted by Monatsbinde:

It is no wonder u lost it all. The community told u it needs a solo play mode. U ignored it. U completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ it up on ur own fault and now player like me( who rly loved the best br game ever made) are absolutely betrayed because we all told u so. whatever u guys madu ur money, thats all that counts, isn`t it?

Yeah they made their money and now bailing on it that must be why they are still patching it...

They added solo (granted it might have been a bit late) and you know what it did to the player numbers nothing infact it made it even worse. You know why because adding solo only provided nothing to the game while taking away from it.

What i would like to see come back is squads (even if its just duo) with the self revive mechanic. So those playing solo can still get back up reducing the advantage gap between solo and squads.

How the hunt ticks over to BR is alot more fun with the sharks still in the zone so it would be nice if they stay it nakes the sea feel a lot more alive.

The game is only getting better gameplay wise and feel and i have no doubt that if they released around the stage they are at now they would have got a lot warmer reception. But what is done is done so if funds permit they are probably best developing last tide as mhch as they can before a rerelease thwy will only get one more real shot at it coming out of EA to full.

[Ohana]

NECRO! Where's the progress DiCo?

[abysss24]

You want some feedback? Whatever you did with this game, now It is a TERRIBLE TIMEWASTER WITHOUT A GPS. I cannot find players, I cannot even understand where is the safe area from the sharkscreen, which directions to follow nothing. It is terrible now.

Also, I couldn't find a GPS yet.

[diegolerox.zero]

what I would like them to do is an optimization of the game ... as it is; depth, since last tide, it requires a lot of graphic resources, and it lacks optimization .. for mid-range computers, I want to believe that part of what I mentioned, is why they lost some players, since much optimization is missing in the game .

[Preston1139]

It bites that this game hasn't received the love it deserves. I tried Hunt, and I actually really like it! Thanks for trying and I hope things go well enough to keep the servers open. You folks rock!