Add, remove and add back in again. Do they even know what they are doing?

Its funny how the tl;dr of so many threads is: people don't understand how game development works.

And one of the biggest reasons the average gamer has almost no idea how game development works is every time some developer tries to tell gamers how it works gamers get upset and turn on them. I still remember when Skullgirls asked for $150,000 crowdfunding to make a new character and gamers across the internet flipped their collective shizzle only for devs across the internet to chime in and eventually make people realize that the actual cost was more like $250,000 and the devs were all taking big pay cuts to get it done for $150,000.

And if anything people are even LESS knowledgeable about game development than then. Many/Most Game devs would love to share with gamers, but its just not worth the toxicity as 1,000 armchair developers who have zero knowledge on the subject try to drag the dev to the nearest guillotine driven mostly by ignorance touched with narcissism.

So at this point we're in a catch 22. People get upset because they don't understand game dev and devs don't want to tell people about game dev because people will get upset lol. Nobody wins, not gamers nor devs :(.
 
Ralathar44 said:
... the toxicity as 1,000 armchair <insert relevant profession> who have zero knowledge on the subject try to drag the <insert relevant position> to the nearest guillotine driven mostly by ignorance touched with narcissism.
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1000 is low :).

However, I love he quote, so I am keeping it as it can be applied to "...a great many things..." with only the change of a few words.
 
Roland said:
That is a very simplistic way to put it that doesn't really accurately fit what is happening. They did not remove the cowboy and then add in the plague spitter, and now are adding back that same cowboy. The plague spitter didn't replace the original cowboy. There were years between the models. The new model going in is a rancher wearing a cowboy hat but in no way contains any of the original code. The community complained that the Plague Spitter did not fit the lore and TFP agreed and created a brand new model. You trying to claim that they just brought back the old cowboy is silly.

When jars come back they will not be coming back in exactly the way they were implemented before. They are not simply returning the game state back to what it was before they removed the jars and added the dew collector. The new feature combines what we had with what we have now and is the result of community feedback plus the resources and development that happened in between. If TFP were to just revert then I agree that it would constitute a huge waste of time and money for them. But they are not flip flopping back to what was. It is a new game state coming out in 4.5 and in no way a simple return to what once was.



There was no waste. TFP still owns the asset and can use it down the road for any future game they create. As for the AI and behavior and animations, none of that will go to waste as they will be applied to the new model. The rancher will still vomit out bees so the new 2.0 feature remains intact while the community gets a character that is more immersive and fitting for the setting of the game.

The game has had a lot of experimental and partially worked on assets and systems and features removed. That is all standard fare for any creative production. Nothing that was removed is being returned now other than in name only. The empty jars are coming back but in a completely different way than they were implemented before. Smell is being implemented completely differently than it was before. It is not the same feature you might remember. Temperature, clothing, and wetness are all being redone and implemented in new ways and not just pasted back in the way they used to be. As I said, you are over-simplifying this. Only you know your motives for doing so.

Rick said words that could be taken as an explanation of what to expect or be taken as blame. He never outright stated that they are blaming the community for further delays of 3.0. He did state that because TFP has chosen to respond to the feedback, that they would need to delay 3.0 features and that people should expect that. The fact that only some people took the words as blame but others did not shows that the words themselves aren't blaming. It is simply the perception of each person.



I'm so glad they did not. The modern game is so much better than A16 was in my opinion. As for console players, you needn't worry for them. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive with most who played the old Telltale version very pleased with the new version. Of course, you can't please everyone so there will be some who preferred the old game but they are the minority. Most of them don't feel stuck with anything inferior even though you feel it for them on their behalf.



Despite the efforts of a certain influencer's crew, it isn't DOA. Seems like you are one of those trying to push that narrative. Time will tell but people like you said the same thing about 7 Days to Die back in 2013 and 2014 but here it is today alive and strong and wildly successful.



There is a proper plan. That plan is on hold for a few months while the developers craft a community update but it hasn't been abandoned. It really shows that people like you will never be happy. If they stick to their proper plan you castigate them for ignoring the community and for making the edits and cuts and streamlining necessary for their proper plan. If they agree to implement some things that the community has been asking for then you criticize them for failing to follow their plan.
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Well looking at steam reviews the game isn't in a better place. Along with so many others who have spoken out about the how bad the games state currently is.

Yes Rick did basically blame the community but I can see why you would twist it to defend him with your role and all. When we want changes or aren't happy with features and they need to change it to make the folks who paid for the game happy its our fault. God forbid you keep paying customers happy especially of you want them to keep supporting your future games or ridiculous microtransactions.

Giving the zombie a name change doesn't change it from what it was that would be like bringing back the football player and calling him a hockeyplayer. Yes I see you calling it immersion with a zombie spitting out bees weird how immersion is fine to use when it suits certain folks.

No one is leading any hate campaign against blood moons the game is already doing that itself with how bad it is and its disgusting monetization practices. I'm sure there is a reason why it takes such an insane amount of time to earn currency for the skins that was probably taken out of EAs playbook.

Reddit, comments on YT and even here have shown folks aren't happy with the current game but I'm sure you will point out the vocal minority who are happy with it as some kind of proof that all is well. Console reviews are mixed unless you want to cherry pick a spot that which has them super positive.

Games been in development for such a long time and it still seems to have no direction. Hell no one even knows to this day what made the zombies, who is part of what faction, what the factions even want or anything but hey gotta instant patch and make sure players aren't playing the game how they want in a supposed open world sandbox. Shout out to the zombies who got their structural engineering degrees.
 
Slingblade2040 said:
Yes Rick did basically blame the community but I can see why you would twist it to defend him with your role and all.
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I didn't hear blame, only explanation. Granted, there is room for interpretation, between "the gamers are too blame for this delay, they complained so much we were forced to spend time fixing our mistakes" to "based on useful feedback from the community we have decided to spend some additional time fixing some stuff we are not too happy with".
 
Soulmonster said:
I didn't hear blame, only explanation. Granted, there is room for interpretation
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I can't remember the wording, but the feeling I got, was it was a bit through gritted teeth. But it's a game dev lead, not a PR hippie or a toxic positivity streamer; being a little moody about the situation is absolutely fine. It's not like he was hurling insults, just phrased a crappy situation a little poorly.
 
I've never understood the levels of whining that crop up here, about nearly every single thing TFP do with this game. Performance was the huge issue not too long ago...funny that we don't hear anywhere near the level of complaining about that anymore...now its on to everyone's favorite pet peeve from previous versions. I liked the OG Cowboy and football player, cheerleader, farmer and co but didn't have a cow when they were removed (although the old west town without some cowboys feels weird). No body seemed to complain about the Demolishers being "lore breaking" but the plague spitters and white claws are? There was a bigfoot in one of the newer Far Cry games....not sure how this is much different. Jars removed? It was, well, jarring, at first but how often, after the first week, does ANYONE go, "Hey! I really could use a few more jars..."?

So how about - with the reintroduction of jars - if you are carrying any drink stuffs on you, every time you get hit, there's a percent chance to break them? If they break, you get a percentage of wetness? Minimum, you are out the drinks you were carrying.

I also, personally liked the Storms (but use the Woodle/Spartan mod for different effects) but think there should be mitigating gear that can be worn to protect from the effects (poncho/rain gear/gortex in the forest, smoke mask/rebreather/bunker gear in the burnt forests, cold weather gear and shades for snow, maybe even heated socks and gloves, heat dissipating gear and hydration for deserts, and the full rad suit and iodine tabs for wastelands? Love the idea of seeing them rolling in too.
 
Slingblade2040 said:
Well looking at steam reviews the game isn't in a better place. Along with so many others who have spoken out about the how bad the games state currently is.
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What are you talking about? Reviews are more positive than they were during the blitz. Comments everywhere are more positive with just the changes made so far and with the hope for more changes coming soon. Perhaps you're cherry picking...

Slingblade2040 said:
Yes Rick did basically blame the community but I can see why you would twist it to defend him with your role and all. When we want changes or aren't happy with features and they need to change it to make the folks who paid for the game happy its our fault. God forbid you keep paying customers happy especially of you want them to keep supporting your future games or ridiculous microtransactions.
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The fact that even you have to use the word "basically" in that sentence shows that there was no explicit blame. Did he intend blame? Was blame implicit? Only a mind reader would know. Any time you guess at intent and underlying motivations it is 90% projection. Maybe secretly he was blaming the community. We can't know. The courteous thing to do is give people the benefit of the doubt and err on the side of decency. To me, he was explaining the realities of their choice to do a community feedback update.

I don't know...if you were the writer for his script how would you word it to make sure the community understood that 3.0 would be delayed because of the enhancements they would be making to the 2.0 features as well as bringing back some previous much missed features without it sounding like blame?

Also, which paying customers? I paid and had no interest in empty jars and liked storms fine as they were and didn't want time spent on bringing back smell. There were lots of people pleased with 2.0 as it was just as there were lots of people displeased with 2.0 as it was. All paying. Who are they supposed to keep happy? Even at the height of the negative review blitz it was only the recent reviews that dropped to mixed. The overall rating stayed at very positive. Why is your money supposed to bring different results than my money?

Slingblade2040 said:
Giving the zombie a name change doesn't change it from what it was that would be like bringing back the football player and calling him a hockeyplayer. Yes I see you calling it immersion with a zombie spitting out bees weird how immersion is fine to use when it suits certain folks.
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Immersion about the look of the models. That is what people were upset about. I never heard any complaints about having zombies with new attacks. It was about the look of them. So they changed the models because paying customers demanded it...

Slingblade2040 said:
No one is leading any hate campaign against blood moons...
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Methinks thou dost protest too much...

Slingblade2040 said:
Reddit, comments on YT and even here have shown folks aren't happy with the current game but I'm sure you will point out the vocal minority who are happy with it as some kind of proof that all is well. Console reviews are mixed unless you want to cherry pick a spot that which has them super positive.
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It isn't a vocal minority who is happily playing the game. It is the silent majority. There were over 19 million people who logged into the game during the month of August. 98% of them played the current stable version. I don't care how many posts on reddit, facebook, youtube, steam, x, or here you count up it is a miniscule number compared to the number of people playing. Granted not all 19 million could have been playing. They might have logged in just to check the advertisements on the front page, look through the menu settings, etc.

Slingblade2040 said:
Games been in development for such a long time and it still seems to have no direction. Hell no one even knows to this day what made the zombies, who is part of what faction, what the factions even want or anything but hey gotta instant patch and make sure players aren't playing the game how they want in a supposed open world sandbox. Shout out to the zombies who got their structural engineering degrees.
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Those things are intentionally secret. No wonder nobody knows. Keeping story elements under wraps and confidential isn't the same as having no direction. Actually, if you look at the development of the game since A17 the direction is pretty clear that they are adding more RPG elements, more progression elements, and more structures in order to be able to have a story. That's why the game is not as much of a pure sandbox as it once was. That's a clear direction-- perhaps an undesired one by many-- but still very clear.
 
Slingblade2040 said:
So cowboy got removed, plague spitter got added and now plague spitter is removed and cowboy is being returned.
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It happened due to feedback. People disliked the unnatural nature of the character designs.
Slingblade2040 said:
Jars added in, get removed and are now being returned again.
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I am indifferent to jars but a lot of people seemed to want them so I am glad they are listening to the fans rather than double down on bad decisions.
Slingblade2040 said:
How much time and money was wasted on the plague spitter? Same with now having to back track and add in features most people didn't want removed yet the team decided to remove them anyway but then after so much backlash and negative reviews on steam they are bring back certain features and zombies which of course delays 3.0 which according to someone is our fault that these delays happen.
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The developers had a change of heart and the game is still developing. For me things like temperature are better than most of what 3.0 is slated to offer including bandits.
Slingblade2040 said:
I really wish the team would have stuck with what worked in alpha 16 and just built upon it instead of gutting almost everything that made this game good and turned it into the mess we have now where most PC players are relying on mods for a better experience and console players are stuck with whatever they got.
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Hindsight is 20/20. They developed cities and tiles which was a large deviation from the previous settings. Some things will be accepted and some won't.
Slingblade2040 said:
For a game that was in early access for 11 years and has been in full release since July 25, 2024 it is insane that we are still missing so many things and the team still doesn't have a proper plan on what to keep and what to remove.
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If you have played for a while you will appreciate how far we have come and a lot of it is developing new engine capabilities and behind the scenes things people don't appreciate.
Jost Amman said:
It would have been great if people wasn't allowed into the development process.
But it's too late, now Pandora's Box has been opened... and here we go. :rolleyes:
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The game would, for me, be much worse so I will disagree with you on this one. Games are not made in a vacuum and developers are rarely right 100% of the time, if ever. Most of the games I have played include changes based on feedback and my steam library is packed.
stallionsden said:
Alpha 16 sucked .
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A16 wasn't bad, plus the feedback isn't for a 1 for 1 of A16, but keeping a lot of the complexity and features from it. Saying A16 is bad is like saying 2.0 is bad when 5.0 comes out. It came from a different time. I still enjoy many aspects from it while disliking others.
grz__ said:
I liked the old plague spitter, but because people complained, they're going to change it, and now you're complaining about that too. I also want the old game mechanics to come back, but that doesn't mean that everything new is bad, as some veterans seem to claim. Player feedback is a double-edged sword.
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I don't mind the plague spitter, but the yeti was stupid IMHO. I agree that some things are good and some are bad. It's just challenging to find out what works and what doesn't.
 
Kyoji said:
The game would, for me, be much worse so I will disagree with you on this one. Games are not made in a vacuum and developers are rarely right 100% of the time, if ever. Most of the games I have played include changes based on feedback and my steam library is packed.
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I agree, but you missed the context of my reply. ;)
 
Kyoji said:
I don't mind the plague spitter, but the yeti was stupid IMHO. I agree that some things are good and some are bad. It's just challenging to find out what works and what doesn't
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Yes, some things are better than others, there is also personal interpretation and some may differ from others. For me, the spitter has been a victim of the hate towards 2.0, which in other circumstances would not have happened, since in the game there are things like the demolisher, and the spitter model is quite decent as far as zombies are concerned. I just hope that other things don't become victims like the storms.

Kyoji said:
Games are not made in a vacuum and developers are rarely right 100% of the time, if ever.
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This is true, but players are not always right either. Feedback should be taken with a grain of salt; it can be valuable, or it can be like a kind of Yelp for video games.
 
Jost Amman said:
I agree, but you missed the context of my reply. ;)
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Sorry if I did.
grz__ said:
Yes, some things are better than others, there is also personal interpretation and some may differ from others. For me, the spitter has been a victim of the hate towards 2.0, which in other circumstances would not have happened, since in the game there are things like the demolisher, and the spitter model is quite decent as far as zombies are concerned. I just hope that other things don't become victims like the storms.
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Very possible and I personally enjoyed the model.
grz__ said:
This is true, but players are not always right either. Feedback should be taken with a grain of salt; it can be valuable, or it can be like a kind of Yelp for video games.
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Of course. The developers job is to interpret what people want and sometimes people don't even know what they want.

I am of course not suggesting rule by democracy but rather we provide feedback and the developers interpret what they think will be enjoyable.
 
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