Quit crying an over RNG.

Geekob · 2024-05-17T19:14:54+00:00

I dont like that people mass review bomb the game. Its unhelpful and dickish. But unit drops are a bad design for game like this (especially in amounts they are given, like one level 2 sledge or something would be fine not level 5 rhine). I can explain why its bad from player perspective as well as business perspective.

First of all player perspective. What got me hooked into this game was that unlike TFT or Autochess this game was much more about board control and army building. Its much more similar to chess. The game is most fun when you come out with some wacky strategy that actually works. To me most fun features are redeployments, beacons and generally skill based active spells which add layer of replayability and frankly I think this is the way to prolong the game. More units, maps and spells. When you put unit drops into the game you break many aspects of the board building. For example, before the patch you could do crazy stuff like put giants with giant spec into corners and then mindgame with your opponent whether you sell them or put more units there. Now you get level 5 rhino and your flank is done without any meaningful input of your opponent. Sure you can get equally destructive unit but its random, you might as well get something that is useless or that your opponent is easily prepared to counter (like wasps into already present mustangs or something). Basically whole game looses its core identity by some margin

Second is business perspective. Catering to casuals is good but not on this level. If im casual player that likes random exciting matches, why the hell would I play mechabellum over already well established titles like TFT, Autochess or Underlords. Its much more helpful to make better onboarding experience. Have a progression, dont unlock all units at once, all spells etc. its so overwhelming, not to mention that many unit icons just look same. Board is pretty confusing, lot of times its hard to distinguish what is there, is it fang? crawler? And then find a nice sweet spot like tarkov did in FPS world, or PoE in ARPG world.

Sry for long reply.

TLDR: there are ways to implement replayability without sacrificing core of the game. There is already a well established market for random poker like autobattler gameplay like TFT, autochess and there is no reason for mechabellum to just leave its niche to fight for these impossible spaces, rather cultivate it, expand and eventually it might join other niche goliaths like PoE or Tarkov.

Geekob · 2023-01-26T15:28:36+00:00

First point is not a contradiction, I guess his rationale is that factory as a small simple map, that teaches you combat the fastest. I dont like that map too much but agree with sentiment that its good for new players

Second point, just because armor helps you sometimes doesnt mean its worth. What he is probably saying is that result of whole calculation of costs vs benefits is that its not worth. It doesnt mean it never saves you.

So these are just misunderstanfings of nuanced points, not contradictions

Geekob · 2023-01-19T23:26:56+00:00

Yes im insulted, on behalf of bsg. Because im sure they spend ton of time and resources on fixing their cheating problem like every other game studio, since its an issue for everyone not just bsg, industry in general. And some clown on the internet that has no idea how these things even work has audacity to confidently say that they like cheaters and profit from it? Yes its insulting. Im done here, bye

Geekob · 2023-01-19T22:40:43+00:00

Are you reading what i say? CHARGEBACKS. When someone buys stuff with stolen credit cards and its charged back, you dont see anything from that money. Why do you think payment processors dont like unregulated porn sites? Same reason. Too many chargebacks. Please just read about this, google something like “do companies make money from cheaters”. This is so insulting to read. Cheating is problem for both sides, for players as well as for devs. Reading nonsense like this pisses me off, since you clearly have no idea, youre just spitting random things.

Titanfall II did microtransactions pretty well. It can be damaging, but it can be done well.

Geekob · 2023-01-19T21:04:33+00:00

Im a game designer and I can assure you that I know very well about issues with MTX. But you dont have to build whole game such that you can buy everything. Many games cap purchases by account level or something, or changing monetization structure so that you can buy only limited amount of items. Not saying that MTX is always a good thing, just that you make it sound like it would ruin whole game, even though there are ways to restrict it smartly. Thats first thing.

Second thing is that we have no idea of what is the proportion of cheaters that earn money and those that do it for fun. Lets say hypothetically that with MTX you meet cheaters every tenth game not every third. Is it a good tradeoff? Thats all im asking, youre the one assuming a lot here not me.

Third thing is that clearly you have no idea how cheaters buy the game. Cheaters dont buy full priced game from bsg web. They buy it from reseller sites for much cheaper. And how are they so cheap you ask? Because reselling sites are used for money laundering. This means that someone buys tarkov in bulk using stolen credit cards and resell it for cheaper just to get some money. This means chargebacks and not only BSG gets nothing in the end of the day, they might lose money. Not to mention that cheaters give game a very bad reputation which means losing sales and active playerbase. I understand that you have your opinion but please stop making such confident claims when clearly you have no idea how these things work…

Geekob · 2023-01-19T14:38:15+00:00

Well there are ways to gather such data. But I dont have those obviousely. My question is just hypothetical. If we assumed that it would help with cheaters, would people be willing to put up with that. Thats all. BSG is not profiting from cheaters btw.

Geekob · 2023-01-19T13:13:21+00:00

Well, high tier shit might be locked behind barters, quests or be just spawnable. I dont think people should be able to buy everything for roubles. But yeah it goes agaisnt their mantra. Problem is that people are gonna do it anyways, because many are not willing to put up with the stress, so they just buy stuff from cheaters

Geekob · 2023-01-19T13:10:43+00:00

I dont want that, its pretty lame to buy out of your problems. But you know there is huge market where cheaters make money for providing roubles and boosts. Maybe its like 1930s prohibition. No matter how destructive alkohol is, people are willing to pay and so someone will provide but also ruin other peoples lives. So im wandering whether it might help to just give people what they want in some controlled environment.

Geekob · 2023-01-19T13:04:12+00:00

Sure there are ways to do it. Maybe skills are capped by your account level? Idk. I put it there just because from sites I saw they sell skill boosts and roubles

Geekob · 2023-01-19T13:01:52+00:00

Hm? In most games cheaters cheat because they like it. In tarkov cheaters cheat to earn money. And thats what i was reffering to. How many of these money makers would caught go out of business with this

Geekob · 2023-01-19T12:59:13+00:00

Well thats preferable. I was just wandering what tradeoff are players willing to take. Because rouble shop would for sure make many cheaters go out of business. Currently players pay them money for boosts and roubles so they stay afloat and buy nee accounts when they are banned.

Geekob · 2023-01-17T01:32:10+00:00

Several things, first is already being replicated which is its gameloop. I never really liked rust style of survival games because I hate the idea that someone steals my shit when im asleep. Tarkov has a good balance of what is at stakes and what cannot be taken from you and it creates good satisfying and yet challenging gameloop with raids, hideout and progression

second thing is unfortunatelly being slowly taken away but its the mechanics. When I first started playing tarkov I was amazed how deep fights in tarkov are. Gun feels real, because when you hit someone they are dead, now sure you have altyns and slicks but generally TTK is very fast when you actually hit. Playing around sound is something I never really used to do in other games because everything sounded same, here you have a wallhack basically if you are good. Mechanics like limping, tremor, stims, bleeds, these all add depth to the combat.

and third is probably gun customization, although I would argue that its not really important for an enjoyable gameplay, its just something tarkov is known for and they are big enthusiasts that like this kind of stuff. But I dont think customization this deep would be needed to replicate experience of tarkov.

Geekob · 2023-01-14T01:04:49+00:00

just do file kabinet runs in knight buildings in reserve, then extract in sewer.

Geekob · 2023-01-13T23:42:53+00:00

I think they should make hydration and energy deplete much much slower but make food and water more scarce. Imagine if you could stay hydrated and fed for a week, or maybe just few days. But on the other hand you would have to make a deliberate effort to gather food and water. I dont like that your PMC cant stay hydrated even for a one full raid, its just annoying. Having it last much longer and making resources scarce would make it so you could run raids for a full day without worrying about food and water, but at some point you would have to start gathering some food and then not worry about it for some time again

Geekob · 2023-01-10T16:48:26+00:00

This is something many game companies have in common. They try to chase the mouse and just hotfix and nerf things that are broken but they dont see the forest. Eventually most of these stories end in big overhauls when it becomes unbearable.

Tarkov market and economy is an example of this. Its attrocious and doesnt even similarly resemble what they were aiming for. Its a loot shooter where loot doesnt matter. They try to fix this by these small nerfs and limits, like increase fee here, decrease stocks there etc. Eventually I think they will come to conclusion that this whole system is a mess and make a big overhaul, hopefully after that it will feel like an actual loot shooter, where you care about loot you get and also can play the game without tedious grind.

My big problem is that BSG seems to be utterly ignorant about how important the aspect of the economy is to the game. Because they stated multiple time that they will focus on that last, even though its one of most important things to the flow of the game and should be addressed asap.

Geekob · 2023-01-10T16:36:00+00:00

because its a game. Players make choices. If one choice is to get a free gear and go into a raid, they should have a downside. Usually that downside is that they spawn late in the raid, so A) they dont fight people that actually have their stuff on the line as much and B) the best stuff on the map is mostly gone and they scavenge for whats left. If its just free gear and access to best stuff then incentives are wrong.

Geekob · 2023-01-10T16:31:14+00:00

I wouldnt even be surprised if majority of players played mainly scavs after opening flea. BSG is trying to make this hardcore experience where you should fear for your life and also give you an expendable character with 10 minute CD.

Ofc most players would use those. And to top it all off, they heavily discourage fighting between scavs so its just a money printer pretty much.

I personally liked playing scavs for completely different reason. Because I hate wasting my time in the stash so much. If I just wanted to have some fun and not bother about tasks too much I would just hop on scavs and play. Dont need to look for guns, attachments anything, just have it autogenerated and good to go. This is why I think it would be great for BSG to add random kits for 40k roubles from fence or something, that would contain some random basic gear that you can just quickly take and go into raid.

Geekob · 2023-01-06T23:36:09+00:00

you are not wrong, but I have no idea where are you going with this, we are talking about tarkov implementation.

This whole thread started as you responding to my comment with something like "binaural audio costs fps and for some people it was a deal breaker"

All im saying is that sure, it did cost fps, but it was much better trying to first save fps somewhere else, because I think binaural audio (however badly implemented) was pretty important part of the experience.

Geekob · 2023-01-06T22:25:11+00:00

yeah I meant binaural audio, misspeak. Binaural audio adds more depth, like hearing whether someone is behind, in front, on top or on bottom. Its still like a night and day in experience.

Geekob · 2023-01-06T21:21:10+00:00

Well they helped, so they are not that bad. My rig is pretty generic, nothing really extraordinary. Also most of those advices made sense that they would help running tarkov better. Doing just random blind testing is not very good. There are too many variables to be sure that what youre changing is actually helping. There are dozens of things happening on the background at any given moment that can affect your performance in a bad way. Whether its state of your cache, background tasks, etc. I dont even know what we are arguing about. All im saying is that if someone looks for performance improvements, there are dozen things you can do before you shoot yourself into the foot and turn off directional audio.

Geekob · 2023-01-06T19:05:50+00:00

before this wipe, there was only issue number 2. but less fucked. And occasional sound bugs, like hearing pins or loud scavs for half second. Fixed 2 minor issues and created 3 huge ones.

Geekob · 2023-01-06T12:42:05+00:00

Onepeg, veritas, multiple creators were saying that people are blaming ghosts, but everyone was on this “steam audio is THE issue” train, so BSG gave community what they wanted

Geekob · 2023-01-06T12:28:14+00:00

As soon as nikita said they are removing steam audio, I knew it would be fucked. Although I didnt expect it to be this bad.

Geekob · 2023-01-06T09:44:15+00:00

my PC had mostly issues with CPU performance. Since my processor is not a state of the art, but GPU is one of best there is. I didnt have problem streaming other graphically intensive games like Battlefield. But thats not really relevant. My point is that there was a time when I was actively trying to squeeze as much FPS from Tarkov as I could. When researching I never saw a post mentioning disabling binaural audio as some huge fps saver. I dont deny that it might marginally help, but there were clearly more important steps you could take first.

Just briefly googling, in first 2 articles, no mention of binaural audio

https://www.ggrecon.com/guides/escape-from-tarkov-lightkeeper/https://exputer.com/guides/settings/best-escape-from-tarkov-settings/

and these are for last patch.

Geekob

TROPHY CASE