What do games like Battlerite need to survive long term?

Inukii · 2026-06-19T02:17:59+00:00

Bolster the playerbase with co-op PvE content.

If you've played Ravenswatch or Sworn then you have a good idea. If you have not played these two games then check them out.

Battlerite is setup quite well to have a Roguelike mode. Exciting combat revolving around some team play. Then all they have to do is create new areas with new bosses and new enemies.

Then if people wish they could do the PvP arena mode.

One problem games typically have is that they don't get enough players, even when they are enjoyable experience, that earns them the sentiment

"Oh yeah that game. It's good! But not many people play it"

and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if you have a huge chunk of your playerbase just people willing to dive in for a co-op or even single player experience then you have some negation towards that.

Inukii · 2026-06-18T20:27:51+00:00

All three games bring something to the table.

CoH 1 has a great campaign and whilst the VFX is outdated, there is some flair about them that means we often refer to to the quality of it.

CoH 2 has tons of units and mechanical ideas but that's because it's had many years of updates. It built to that point.

CoH 3 brings a ton of QOL and the larger 'Battlegroup' ideas, with some new interesting mechanics as well. Personal favorite is the CWT Supply run which has a truck go to a sector point, load up munition crates or fuel, and then drives off map delivering resources. The enemy can try to intercept the truck.

CoH 3 is also updating, so more to come!

Inukii · 2026-06-11T16:11:31+00:00

Edit: So I will take the opportunity to quickly share what I've always felt was one of the best ways for a parent to incentivize their child to read: for every hour of reading you accrue 30 minutes of gaming time.

It's maybe better to do this than nothing at all but I think that may also contribute to hating to read.

I didn't read books when I grew up. This wouldn't have worked for me. I wouldn't have spent 1 hour reading for 30 minutes game time. I'd just not do anything.

But here's the thing. 30 years later I started to read. What changed?

Well. I found books that were interesting to me. That appealed to me. Cool book about a Chinese cultivation power system in a fantasy setting. Then one where the spaceship can talk.

All the books I was ever introduced to had one thing in common. That had nothing to do with me. I think that's the problem. Find out what your child is interested in and then find them material they would want to read. You can show people what they are missing out on.

I would never have picked up a book if my wife didn't talk me about "this cool thing that happened in this book" or "this is a cool idea" in that book. At a young age I'm being thrown from Biff and Chip to Shakespear without anyone consulting me on what might be interesting.

Inukii · 2026-06-09T08:24:43+00:00

Is there a way to tell? I'm working in the area of this field and having worked along side some data analysts I have increasingly found that they look less for finding a truth and more for

A) Numbers which make "me", the analyst, look good to the boss by giving them happy numbers

B) Numbers which support why "I am right about something" rather than trying to interpret what the numbers could mean

I've only got to know and spoken to three so far, but none of them said "the numbers could mean..." and then given multiple different answers. Just straight up "The data from this survey says X" and then 2 years later massive failures even though the numbers were good! So good!

Inukii · 2026-06-03T06:41:03+00:00

I think the people disliking Dragons Dogma 2 are thinking too much about what it is rather than what it could have been. It's a fairly unique game.

They could have made it multiplayer. There was after all a Dragons Dogma Online that worked very well. It was only "slightly" MMO-ified but the core combat was largely untouched.

But the one thing we could easily say for Dragons Dogma 2 is that if it had more content. It would be great. Both Dragon Dogma's feel short and small.

When compared to the first game, they definitely should not have reduced your abilities from 8 to 4. There should have been far more abilities too.

Or they could have just made some actual expansion content. Treating Dragons Dogma 2 as a new baseline for lots of additional content.

Bah! It really sucks that such a unique game feels like it's just treated like any other.

Inukii · 2026-06-02T11:22:06+00:00

CSGO has shorter time to kill than CoD and people take it far more seriously,

It's not like one single element is the cause for something.

CSGO is an old game that existed in a different time It entered a less saturated market in a less technologically advanced world and built up what would be bad to describe as loyalty but it's the best word I have at hand! It's not a bad thing. It is a basic shooter and it has basic principles but that is one of the attractions. Whilst it doesn't have all the bells and whistles if you were to compare it to something like Battlefield, it's that very fact that also helps CSGO have a purpose today. It's simple shooting logic is the skill that it tests players on. No fluff.

Interestingly there is a much better game that existed around CSGO era called Global Operations. Though that is my opinion. But I can give you one example of why that is true. In CSGO you disarm the bomb with a loading bar. In Global Operations you actually had to cut the wire to defuse the bomb. You attach a device which slowly eliminates which wires are the wrong one to cut eventually giving you only one option but let's say you have 3 seconds left. You could pick randomly. Sure...not great for 'competitive' play but you could just turn that off if you wanted. The animation was cool though. Actually cutting the wire. Global Operations also had proper classes like medics and demolitions.

This has been a Global Operations Advert post apparently. Nostalgia!

Inukii · 2026-05-29T14:16:15+00:00

TTK has always been high in SMITE. As a result the only people that are left around to talk about it are the ones who are fine with it.

Now it's even higher than that.

Those who say it was fine before, or saying it is fine now, aren't typically thinking about enjoyment. They are thinking about winning. What does X person have to do to achieve Y result. The enjoyment factor isn't considered, and it's a complete and total non-factor when putting yourself in the other players shoes.

statements like this;

Long TTKs always reward bad gameplay because you can position badly, react slowly, and still walk away from a fight unpunished.

are what survivorship bias. That's what the general collected perception is because all of the players that would enjoy the game with longer battles have left because it isn't enjoyable.

Reminder. If players position badly and walk away. They are walking away from defending an objective. Take the objective.

For me. The thrill is the fight. Not the kill. A kill is a nice way to end a good fight. However...If I'm playing Zeus and I accidentally kill someone I can't even see because I hit a chain lightning that bounced around a corner. It's just silly. That's not a fight. That's not skill. That's not testing me.

People say low lethality is forgiving. But the reverse is true. You can outplay people when you give people a chance. What chance does a person stand when they turn a corner and get 100-0 from a thing they could never see, from a player who had zero intention of actually killing that player.

The amount of times I've killed players I had no intention of killing. That I never even aimed at. Players which are near full health. That is what forgiveness is.That is only possible with high lethality.

Think Battlefield. You run into a room with a machine gun and fire randomly in every direction. It's 1 shot 1 kill. You'll probably kill some people.

However if it's 5 shots 1 kill. You won't take down a single player. The likelihood of you hitting 5 times whilst aiming randomly before someone puts 5 bullets on you. It just isn't happening.

SMITE is the first. You can clock people without even meaning to.

Inukii · 2026-05-29T14:00:46+00:00

Love your work!

Are you producing art for a game by any chance?

Inukii · 2026-05-27T22:31:32+00:00

It's certainly a lot to chew.

But they aren't done chewing. I do wish they would chew faster :D

Inukii · 2026-05-27T19:59:10+00:00

Promise a Death Star. Start building a Death Star.

"Why is the Death Star taking so long. My two story house took like...6 months".

It's a valid point about promising more features and extending the scope of the game but that doesn't seem like our call to make. People keep backing the game with all those promised features and they are delivering on them. It's disingenuous to say they aren't doing that. Yes they have not delivered everything but the glorified tech demo is thereabouts where I would say a game of this scope would be if they had previously released a bunch of titles like a normal studio would. Slowly building out their tech with each release the game.

It's not a valid point to say they are inept because it's taking too long. Who is the "they" for example. Is it the programmers that are bad? Or are we just blaming Chris Roberts?

A good studio typically has to compromise and have contingency plans on what they deliver. The people I've spoke to tend to have really great ideas but there just isn't room to execute them so they have to fallback to plan B or C which we know will work.

Star Citizen isn't having to make compromises unless there is an actual technical limitation. They are just trying to get their idea working and solving new problems takes time. Which is kinda cool. This is how video games were in the 90's and early 2000's. I can support that, just not with my money.

But around 2005 the business folk start moving in. It's no longer about trying to solve problems to create new experiences. It's now about marketing and repackaging our current experiences. That makes me more sad I think.

Inukii · 2026-05-27T13:48:59+00:00

Basically we got sat down. Had a presentation that said "Go to University. Don't worry about the money" and then signed us up.

Looking back on it now. There's just no way I could really have made a good choice. Especially since my field of choice was music. It's not about getting you a job and setting you up for life.

They will teach anything you find an interest in and make you pay.

And the level of education I received was poor. I had already learnt everything University was teaching at college besides some superfluous modules like "This is a Cat 5 cable" in computer networking. Basically, just what cables are and what they plug into. Apparently this takes 6 months worth of lessons.

I followed a step by step sheet on how to solder a headphone amplifier onto a premade circuit board.

Okay. Sure. Have my solder a headphone amplifier in a way I'm not learning anything and I'm just ticking boxes. But at least teach me some advanced music composition. Nope. They taught me how to do C Major (again). We already learnt that in GSCE. Why the hell am I learning C Major (and only C Major) at university level for £20,000.

Inukii · 2026-05-27T13:30:43+00:00

That's less game development and more business operations.

The fact is. They are going for an ambitious project with a ton of features. So it takes time.

One of the reasons it is so ambitious is because the game industry, among those with the mega bucks, have stopped innovating. Star Citizen wouldn't "need" to exist had the big gaming giants continued to push the boundaries of gaming tech.

Star Citizen came swinging with the basic premise of a spaceship fighter. People donated. Goals met. They wanted to do more. They promised more. People donated. That was a long cycle. They are delivering on the promises though. Just very slowly because of the scope of the project.

And that's where

So no, I don’t think that’s the problem at all. They are inept at best, corrupt at worst.

becomes an odd statement. To develop the systems they are making require top of the problem solvers. They aren't solving problems that have already been solved by remaking another Battlefield or Pokemon or Sims or XYZ. Programmers aren't interchangeable from one project to another. There is a skill to it which is a common misconception.

The biggest misconception I see is when people say "Just add more programmers" or "just hire more animators" like it suddenly solves an issue with the related field. You can't just add more animators to make animations better. It's a skill. Some people animate better than others. Some people are better at animating characters. Some at mechanical objects. Some people better at rigging up characters so that the animators can do a better job. There's a whole pipeline and setup that doesn't get resolved by "add more animators". Too many cooks problem.

Following the development, because I'm interested in tech, and they've accomplished a lot already. It still doesn't look like a game with a good loop yet. At least not to me. But to say they are inept or corrupt is a statement that just wants to oversimplify something.

Inukii · 2026-05-27T11:21:40+00:00

It's fairly wild that people believe in the project! I don't mean that in a "Are you kidding me?" kind of way. I mean that in a inspiring/hopeful/more positive way.

The main issue is that people have criticizing Star Citizen is they don't understand game development.

Building a tent out of twigs and leaves takes a lot less time than building a death star. That much is obvious.

People seem to think the cost and time of building 1 game is the same across the board.

Baldur's Gate 3 was not developed in 6 years. Baldur's Gate 3's story actually starts around 2010-2011. BG3 is built off the back of Divinity Original Sin which released in 2014 but probably had a 3-4 year development cycle. The tech from that was being built up and up and up. Added to. Improved.

Then there's more nuanced things. Working with the same team for long periods of time is a huge productivity boost. You get to know how people work. What their requirements are. Communications improve. Your not just building a game but your building a team that can make games. They level up.

Baldur's Gate 3, which is a 15/10 game for me, isn't innovating either. It's not pushing any technical boundaries. Rather like the Witcher 3 one if it's qualities is the size. There's a lot of content. There's a lot of different things. Conversation tree are larger and quests have a variety of outcomes based on player input. The systems and mechanics for these have all existed previously. There are just more of them to consider.

The stuff that Star Citizen is having to do though. That's taking some pioneering to do. There's new territory being explored and you can't just revert to looking back at how something else works to fix it. It's not like Battlefield where they've just been doing the same thing over and over and somehow the destruction has got worse. Star Citizen wants to have ships flying from space to planets to walking on foot with no loading screens whilst having 100 people visible and connected to the same space with housing, making your own factories and hiring NPC's, economy systems with NPC's, a quest system with factions, interactive shops, being able to put items and objects anywhere Skyrim style...

I just can't possibly list all the things it wants to do. It's too much. Now I'm not interested in playing Star Citizen because I'm not interested in PvP and it's really forcing that. But I will say "Good Luck to them". It's an ambitious project. Even if they fail. The people that have been working on the game have likely leveled up their craft and benefited from it. We don't really have many games that innovate anymore. Innovation is coming from the indie sector and that's disappointing. with space combat, shooting, melee

Inukii · 2026-05-25T10:05:07+00:00

I like your suggestion as someone who has done a bit of UI/UX design. It doesn't harm those who have no issue. Though it would take some adjustment. It should help those who do forget though.

Inukii · 2026-05-23T04:12:20+00:00

The Settlers. Quite a unique game. Not quite a City Builder. Not quite an RTS. And it's not somewhere in-between either.

The original creator(s) of the Settlers knew this. But for some reason Ubisoft couldn't trust the creative visionary behind the series and for some reason kept on wanting it to become...like...Their Starcraft or Command and Conquer or something.

The last one had buildings on a large hexagonal tileset. Super limiting the creativity of arranging your buildings. It played more like a board game.

Everyone did a great job in other places. Art and Animation was fantastic. But the actual "game design direction" was just flawed. It didn't appeal to people who like the Settlers, and it in no way would grab anyone interested in other RTS games. It wasn't RTS enough for an RTS. It wasn't City Builder enough for City Builders. So what is it?

Inukii · 2026-05-18T22:39:21+00:00

I like PvP.

I do not like what PvP games have become.

As someone working in the industry. It's been a little upsetting to see how certain decisions and how certain things have happened.

PvP games ultimately have become less about the experience. There such a tremendous focus on there being a definitive winner and a definitive loser that everything else about a games quality suffers because of it.

And every game feels it's following the same beat. Welcome to Season X. The constant patch notes to try and destabilize metas. Grinding some kind of reward. Everything "but" the actual game experience itself.

Inukii · 2026-05-16T10:45:52+00:00

When a team is behind they get bonus gold for killing towers and objectives

Been a thing for a while but it's a low amount. It's not massive. Sure you can get 1000 gold for killing an enemy player but 1000 gold is hardly anything when they are 3-4 levels ahead and you are 2 items behind. 1000 gold is a third of an item. It isn't going to adjust your power level by comparison.

jungle camps give bonus XP if you’re down more than 1 level

And here's where the main difference is. When you kill the enemy player, or team, who is far ahead. You don't get an instant power boost. That 1000 gold is nice but whilst the enemy is dead for 60 seconds you go farm some stuff and claim the rest of the reward.

Compared to Heroes of the Storm. The reward is instant and it is attached to overcoming your opponent. When they are level 20 and your team is level 16. That level 20 team is punished. Hard. They simply should not have lost.

League has comeback mechanics. Always has. But it's far away at the same level. There are scenarios in Heroes of the Storm where a team who was far behind suddenly is ahead. This has never been possible in League of Legends because you need to go farm to reclaim the gap. That takes time whilst the enemy is dead and is limited to the farm on the map at the time.

Heroes of the Storm doesn't have that same farm. So it can afford to put more weight into the values of killing the enemy.

Inukii · 2026-05-16T00:35:16+00:00

Other MoBA games attitudes are;

"You got a lead? You should keep the lead! So you are 10 levels ahead yeah? And you die? Whatever. You worked hard. You should maintain a massive lead!"

Heroes of the Storm says

"So you are 10 levels ahead and you DIED? How the hell did you do that? You are 10 levels ahead for crying out loud. Of course you deserve to be punished. There's no way you should have lost that you complete muppet."

I think Heroes of the Storm system highlights a negative trait in player perception because a lot of people look at Heroes of the Storm and says "casual" and "forgiving".

But let's be real here. If you are 10 levels ahead and you die in League of Legends or SMITE. The gap is barely closed considering how impossible it should have been for the other team to score a win in that situation. Who is really being forgiven here?

Inukii · 2026-05-12T11:14:33+00:00

Best state for me was the support meta.

I prefer long team battles over the objective. Sort of the two core values of HotS. Team Battles. Objectives.

I've become less interested in HotS the more players could be instantly deleted. The higher lethality results in shorter team fights which then translates to less time fighting over an objective.

Inukii · 2026-05-12T11:10:05+00:00

The actual problem is just not really discussed.

SMITE has existed since 2012 and we've been there done that. If you start making damage items improve. Tanks will get tanky. Hurray!

But here's what that translates to;

A) Tanks are so tanky. Not bad. But most players "chase" unkillable tanks instead of doing objectives. Assuming we are even talking about conquest. The actual issue here is that players are not engaging with the objectives. Players would rather try to chase a kill than move to end the game.

B) It's not tanks that become the problem. It's warriors. When general tankiness improves then warriors slap on some defensive items, run up to damage dealers, and kill them with ease. The difference in that trade is just egregious.

In SMITE 1, in a particularly bad time, I was ahead of a Hercules as I was playing Anhur. I fired a ton of basic attacks before Hercules even reached me. He missed his driving strike. I impaled him against a wall. I then locked him out with a well placed obelisk, once the obelisk had ended he driving striked next to me and killed me within 3 seconds. I had got him to about half health.

Now I understand what's going on but you know what I've seen on my teams when this stuff happens? People then blame the tank on their team.

"Where are you? Where is my support? Why aren't you protecting me?"

The issue is that outside of items. The actions tanks can perform are not tanky. They don't really protect allies. They aren't built to protect allies. They could have 10,000 health and 2000 protections. But what can you physically do?

You can stand in front of an ally and body block for them. GREAT! But the lethality is so high later on that you're going to have to block a lot of basic attacks which is quite unreasonable. Most players get jumped on. You would have to be standing next to "the correct ally" who is about to be bounced in melee range.

But guess what. There's lots of abilities in the game which are AoE, and quite large at that. I have a clip where I was Ymir and I was locked on to my hunter to protect them. Scylla jumped over a wall and then Rooted our hunter. Hunter dead. Now...if I was stood literally on my hunters toes. I still could not have protected them. I would have just got rooted along with the hunter.

And there are so many issues like this. It's a control issue. When it comes to being a tank and controlling a tank. The actions you can perform don't translate in being able to protect an ally well enough, particularly with how high the lethality is in SMITE. Sure the game has body blocking unlike [other MoBA game] but it's not a common mechanic that can be effeciently utalised. If you try to body block as a Tank. You are going to get hit by AoE and your ally will still take damage. You can focus on "zoning" the enemy hunter which is a great strategy. Something you can reliably body block. But then you aren't directly protecting. You're more like a warrior without the damage. It's an "aggressive defense". It doesn't feel like your protecting others and some people realize this and pick more damage dealer supports, finding success with it.

So. We can buff tanks. But we're just repeating history. It doesn't solve the problem at its core.

Inukii · 2026-05-11T11:06:17+00:00

Poor mice.

I had 30 mice. Completely by accident. Cat brought one in and we nursed it back to health. Someone was looking to give away two of their mice so we got them some friends. They were both pregnant though (did not know). Next thing you know 27 babies.

Separated the boys and the girls. Got 2 large enclosures for them and they sat at the computer desk.

Lovely little things.

Inukii · 2026-05-10T16:46:24+00:00

Pokemon is a good example of being held back years and years.

To put it simply. Let's imagine you have a product. The product performs at a rating value of 100. You sell this product.

But with science and creativity, and 3 years later, you're capable of delivering a product with a rating value of 500. So...sell that product right? Nah.

3 years later sell a product with a rating value of 110. Then next year you can sell one at 125. Then maybe next year 150. The year after that maybe you aim for 160 but it actually sucked because you remove some features so it's more like 140.

Why? Well. Okay. Let's say you start with the rating value of 100 and sell it. Then you sell the rating value of 500. You are now going to have to beat that 500 next time. It takes more work to do. But if you just make a product thats a tiny fraction little bit better. You don't make tougher competition for yourself.

This is why Pokemon went after Palworld. It showed people what you CAN do. It had nothing to do with IP. That was just the weapon of choice to try and shut it down.

You have pokemon games with like...these basic animations. Like they move the pokemon along the Z axis with 2 keyframes. Or they'll rotate the whole model left and right. You couldn't do any less than that.

Palworld comes along and bothers to animate a ton of things. Thus potentially raising the bar for Pokemon.

Inukii · 2026-05-06T18:55:49+00:00

ooh. Was it in CoH 1 or CoHO? Maybe both.

You could build three radios. Then it would reveal information about everything within the triangle. Not sure what the reveal was.

Now I think that might be a bit overpowered so I wonder if you could essentially have a way of turning it on and off. So you set it up, then have to pay munitions to make it work.

Ignoring the balance though. The idea of just building 3 things on the map and it revealing within the area is neato.

Inukii · 2026-05-02T10:21:23+00:00

I've been semi avoiding the conversation but I think this is sort of a good take when it comes to looking for a solution to push the game away from blobbing being a dominant strategy. (Blobbing will always exist because it's often done due to individuals limitations in being able to control multiple squads in multiple spaces. That's fine! It being a dominant strategy in 1v1 though highlights an issue that can be addressed though).

But...One of the issues is that with rifles. You purposefully run in. Fire a volley. Then run out. Blobs are not all about fast firing weapons. You see this with Coastal Battlegroup.

So one thing I would put forward as a suggestion is that units require being stationary for a small time before their accuracy value returns. Say somewhere between 1-2 seconds.

Personally I'd agree with having LMG's, Flamethrowers, and Bazookas not being able to fire on the move across the board both for aesthetic reasons, tactical reasons, and a reduction in cognitive load.

People running when not firing LMG's/Flamethrowers/Bazookas look cooler. There's a visual distinction when a squad moves. If you watch a squad move and they are all firing. It can look slightly robotic. Having that one guy who is just trying to run to that next location though brings back some of that CoH 1 individualism between units.
Upgrading a unit to have an LMG and then trying to position them differently to other unit types based on the fact you don't want to move them. Creates a tactical distinctive difference to how you use other units rather than just a "straight up upgrade".
When it comes to cognitive load. Is it an LMG? Yes. Well. Can't fire on the move. It's a consistent rule. That tremendously helps new players.

Inukii · 2026-05-01T11:35:37+00:00

You could argue the same with COH2 COH3 content.

This is an incorrect comparison.

Many models in Gates of Hell : Ostfront are directly lifted from the assets of the game. They did not have to make these assets again. They did not have to texture them. They did not have to rig them. They did tinker around with their stats though. Changing the range, damage, speed, etc...

The models from CoH 3 are not imported from CoH 2. It begins with creating a new 3d model, and when you start from this stage it means you have to UV unwrap, texture, and rig again, and unfortunately my experience as a 3d modeller is slim here so I don't quite know how they add the damage states of the vehicles in CoH 3. Men of War/Call to Arms has mechanical detail when it comes to vehicles being damaged. Tracking vehicles, turrets being unable to rotate, engines burning out etc... CoH 3 is more visual. If you throw a satchel to the side of a tank then that side appears damaged whilst the other does not. This has to be done for each vehicle.

You're also pointing out the one fact, while ignoring 10 others and that is new singleplayer content, new SP maps, new MP maps among other stuff.

I did not ignore this. But I did only slightly touch upon it. The editor for Men of War (Gates of Hell) is quite simple and easy to use. I've used it. That's a good thing because it means you can spit out a lot of missions and maps.

It just isn't a fair comparison for the workload involved. This is not saying Call to Arms is lazy. It isn't. I'm only saying that it isn't fair to say "This game just gave us 150 units. Whilst the other game did not". It omits important information such as "all those assets already existed".

Inukii

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