Making New Content is Pointless Now

[Chocorope]

Uh, November- early March had a CRAP ton of updates both in dev diaries and patches going. The only the last month or so that has been a bit barren so far in terms of "official" updates. But a lot of it is just you not really paying attention.



Increasing The Playerbase
Launcher Updates and Fixes (this is still in testing phases since you haven't seen this released yet)
March Character Models (Models at the end of this post are the ones currently being worked on, beginning was the ones that were being released the next patch)
Feedback Thread: Open Beta (after V1.4.9) - Drop 1 Open Beta 1
Feedback Thread: Open Beta (after V1.4.9) - Drop 2 Open Beta 2
Feedback Thread: Open Beta (after V1.4.9) - Drop 3 Open Beta 3
Expect Open Beta 4 in the next 2 days ish.

Plus things we aren't ready to show or talk about yet. Sometimes things are just too early and we will end up being quiet. However we have been VERY communicative lately.

But it’s not what players want, we want decent gameplay changes, anything beter, just give us 1.3 while we wait for the ultimate changes, no one like 1.4. Patch’s ever since they got introduced

Edit: what I wanted to say is, I do appreciate new maps, new models and all, but if the gameplay is plain shitbad, I don’t understand how I’m supposed to appreciate my time inside the game regardless of how awesome these new maps, or models you guys throw at us are

 

[MaceMadunusus]

But it’s not what players want, we want decent gameplay changes, anything beter, just give us 1.3 while we wait for the ultimate changes, no one like 1.4. Patch’s ever since they got introduced

You were talking about us not communicating no? Whether or not you like/think the changes are the best is an entirely different thing.

 

[Chocorope]

Expect Open Beta 4 in the next 2 days ish.

Plus things we aren't ready to show or talk about yet. Sometimes things are just too early and we will end up being quiet. However we have been VERY communicative lately.

I appreciate so much that honesty, thats exactly the kind of news i want, I just want to be aware of these little details, anything, but please don’t let us In the blank, we’re all waiting, hoping each days for some slight, small but full of hope news and announcements like that.

Im looking forward to try new beta, thanks again bb, I’ll wait patiently for it

 

[Chocorope]

You were talking about us not communicating no? Whether or not you like/think the changes are the best is an entirely different thing.

Sorry, got abit too quick on answering, read my post above

 

[Lervish]

Activity comes and goes, nothing new there. 15 years and still going stronk. Single-map servers are a pity in my opinion too but I'm not too worried about gameplay, despite constant development the game has remained largely the same, and nostalgia always plays a factor when thinking about how good the past releases were.

I wish I'd got a fraction of a Bitcoin every time somebody made a dedgaem thread over the years.

 

[Chocorope]

Activity comes and goes, nothing new there. 15 years and still going stronk. Single-map servers are a pity in my opinion too but I'm not too worried about gameplay, despite constant development the game has remained largely the same, and nostalgia always plays a factor when thinking about how good the past releases were.

I wish I'd got a fraction of a Bitcoin every time somebody made a dedgaem thread over the years.

It’s just... NA been really empty since few days, to not say week, I’m just highly concerned about it because I really love this game

 

[Iscandar]

This is a different argument here and there's not much I can say against it. My only thing is, if people got too comfortable playing on DOTF/Deathstar/a tiny bit of lunarbase instead of trying the new maps you can't really blame the server owners for it right? Look at the backlash Mace got and still gets because of the DOTF update, change can be hard for some.

But I agree, I like Dxun alot

It goes back to the cycle I laid out in the beginning of the thread. Running one-map servers on select maps and having clan members to fill them up initially is simply the easiest way to make population initially, make new clan members, and build trust that the servers will be populated in the future. However, this has the negative effect of weeding out many potentially interesting or talented new players who want to see what the mod has to offer, as well as drive off frustrated veterans who're very tired of seeing the same old' same old'. In exchange for them, these servers both attract and breed players who have the strange mindset necessary to enjoy playing the same maps forever - and these people drag down the community. These one-map servers are ensuring clans keep their population at the expense of a brain-drain of the community - a very shortsighted trade. This is in essence a "quantity over quality" tactic for their own survival, and while it works and is definitely easier than promoting diverse content, it harms the quality of the community around it over time.

 

[k4far]

Clickbate title, but an important topic.

It goes back to the cycle I laid out in the beginning of the thread. Running one-map servers on select maps and having clan members to fill them up initially is simply the easiest way to make population initially, make new clan members, and build trust that the servers will be populated in the future. However, this has the negative effect of weeding out many potentially interesting or talented new players who want to see what the mod has to offer, as well as drive off frustrated veterans who're very tired of seeing the same old' same old'. In exchange for them, these servers both attract and breed players who have the strange mindset necessary to enjoy playing the same maps forever - and these people drag down the community. These one-map servers are ensuring clans keep their population at the expense of a brain-drain of the community - a very shortsighted trade. This is in essence a "quantity over quality" tactic for their own survival, and while it works and is definitely easier than promoting diverse content, it harms the quality of the community around it over time.

View attachment 2918

 

[Nero63]

As i see..
The problem is that the same map are always here and a few people desire to play other maps..
For example,i play Kamino 3 or 4 time than DOTF or deathstar wich are always here.

I mean there are others good maps,and the servs need to make an honest rtv ..

 

[IHaveNoIdeaHow]

Valid enough complaint although I think you're being a little melodramatic about it, but maybe you're right.

I agree with that. I play on EU servers because the ping is better for me there, but you only see the same few maps most of the time. Dotf, lunarbase, death star...
Since I am a new player it doesn't annoy me at the moment though. I have to learn other things like the game mechanics so it doesn't get boring.

This is really unfair for the developers of this game. Sno-Dog, for example, who made the Dxun map, had this map in the works for literally years before releasing it. I've known Sno-Dog ingame for years, and know that this was a labor of love from him. Yet, on the first few days I see this map played after the new update, I see people already saying "this map sucks, switch it already." I haven't seen it played since. In the past, people would play a map for weeks before deciding whether or not it was good or bad, because they realized different maps played differently, and because they realized every map needed time for it to develop its own meta. Nowadays, the average player won't even give new maps the time of day, and would rather play on the same few maps - a product of their upbringing.

Although Dotf, lunarbase and death star are the most common maps to be seen, I still see dxun once in a while. Not as much as the most common maps but still. Just yesterday I also played on the Jedi Enclave at Dantooine. Kamino, Jedi Temple and a few other maps get chosen sometimes as well.
Maybe the problem is worse on US Servers, but still, there are many many maps I haven't seen even once yet like Korriban for example.

 

[Langerd]

Well i am new member here but i understand the issue. I saw servers that are playing one map only. The most populated server is see is the death star server. It is always full of players but i cant play it because of ping 144.

Other servers are different situation. I pay attention on how it goes with the rest. Most of them have RTV system . Some servers dont have the team balance which is quite annoying. TK system is alright but there should be option to low it during gameplay.

About the map change... i must say. I think there shouldnt be any maplist or Rtv system. There should be auto level change. Players should try to play on the maps that they dont like. Of course reasons why they dont like them - there are many of them.. they dont like objective or map is like a maze or map is too simple or ugly for them. Even so.. if gameplay side works fine - try to play it. But if the objective is lame or all players dont give a damn about it - make a suggestion topic where we can discuss. I think whining or writing - this map sucks will not fix anything. Try to talk here to fix the map you dont like if the map mechanics are screwed up. Trust me that many times removing one wall in the map would change it completely.

For me map with the biggest issue is the Tantive IV map with R2... this map is a mess and objective is a joke. Never saw people actually play it. R2 always explode standing in one place or destroyed by... DEATHTRAP ELEVATORS X) ...yeah

But i dont see many players. I am making new map and i try to give a feedback , write down the all updates and possibilities for the map. As a new modder i hope my map will be played or even played sometimes. It is .
A little harsh to read this. People are intrestesed from seeing the screens. But i am ready if they will try it and honestly they will say - i dont like it. But situation like - yeah i played it like 2 times and i wanted to go backnplaying Dotf or Deathstar is just... weird. And very sad for the all map creators. Content even. I make maps because i love to make them and this is my main and most important reason. And if i can support the amazing mod with it i am happy! But knowing that people dont understand how much work these maps model take is very depressing

 

[Defiant]

There is a lot of variation in quality of maps which probably has something to do with it.

I don't know why some servers like to have the same map 24/7. I don't go to these servers, I'm bored to death of death star at the moment anyway. But Star Killer base has been pretty popular since it came out, and there's a fair bit of Dxun too. Lunar continues to be seen a decent amount of time too, plus a decent amount of DOTF still gets played - those are new or revamped maps so its obviously worth doing. Why some servers and players always want the same maps you'll have to take up with them.

Integrating RTV and making it mandatory is something I would consider too.

 

[Bob-Billy]

Still waiting for Jakku 24/7

 

[k4far]

I don't know why some servers like to have the same map 24/7.

Some people can only score on maps they know by camping Deathstar hangar they are feeling safe in, or firing at whatever is coming over long corridor on Dotf. It has to do with meta and certain maps favoring some classes. Backfire after change of Dotf has to do with people being unhappy with the time they had put in memorizing and learning the map was basically discarded.

Scarif is an example of map I fell in love with recently but it isn't that popular yet.

 

[GoodOl'Ben]

I am always loudly opposing any changes that go too much towards homogenizing and removing liberties from players even at the expense of server owners running something shitty like one map 24/7. Enforcing a rotation would hurt playing custom games and running servers how people want.

MB2 to me has become a celebration of player liberty.

All other games I play are so optimized and the gameplay experiences are all standardized. It's fucking boring. You get the same game every time. Your opponents and teammates are at your level due to matchmaking. Your map will be picked from this small map pool. Everybody's watched the latest vids from esports tournament X and think they know something about the meta, so the strats you see will be the same ol' day in and day out. Your player interaction will be limited to 4 emotes because otherwise you'll possibly call someone's mom gay. The only time you will feel alive is a new patch that fucks up with people's precious meta strats, forcing them to explore and enjoy all the aspects of the game.

Hopping on a Movie Battles server is amazing because of its freedom. Sure, I'll meet people who don't like me and call me an asshole. I'll hate the server I hopped on because it has some shitty !spin event and the admin is riding around the server with a mutant rancor. It's still better than not giving people the tools to have fun. Sometimes fun has to be had the expense of others' enjoyment so other people get the most out of the game. Players get to choose what they want to play.

Heroes of the Storm is one of my favorite games, but I hate that I can't trash-talk the opponents, because the devs have removed the option of talking to the enemy. All salt players experience is directed inward to the team and often results in a far shittier experience than some occasional name-calling and feuding. I have not made a single friend playing that game. With MB2 I feel like I meet a bunch of cool people every time.

Some people can only score on maps they know by camping Deathstar hangar they are feeling safe in, or firing at whatever is coming over long corridor on Dotf. It has to do with meta and certain maps favoring some classes. Backfire after change of Dotf has to do with people being unhappy with the time they had put in memorizing and learning the map was basically discarded.

This is a big aspect. Changes always receive a lot of flak when they're targeting things that have always been there. Nobody is exempt from this mindset, no matter how open-minded and flexible the personality.

 

[Iscandar]

I feel like someone posts a thread about this at least once a year, but I see RTV/rotation servers populated all the time in the US.

These threads wouldn't be made routinely if there weren't people who thought this was a problem. If their opinion of the game is that they're not having fun due to lack of variety, that's a completely valid complaint, which I've only seen addressed by reassurances that everything is fine and that they should just forget about it, otherwise they're stupid and should quit complaining. Of course there are going to be threads about it yearly. There is a real enough problem to people here that isn't being addressed. It's an alienating experience for sure.

Legacy Open RTV gets populated frequently.
EW will occasionally round up some people to play on their rtv/rtm server.
MAF server has a rotation, and a bunch of their clan members will get on it together quite often.
I haven't played on it so I dunno if it has a rotation or RTV but I see AOD New Player Haven running different maps all the time.

This is very surprising to hear from you, SWG. You of all people should remember what kind of people used to play this game. You've been playing this game since CoR has been around. CoR was an FA only clan that would manage to get high population routinely. The very idea of an FA only server and clan not only surviving but thriving in today's MBII is pretty laughable.

From my experience in the suggestions for servers you mentioned, I don't believe EW can be considered truly "alive." It's had little to no activity for the past few years and just now had a little one-off reunion. EW doesn't even populate their own servers most of the time since they don't have the level of people necessary to maintain them, and often they just opt to go where it's already populated. Compare this to EW in the past which routinely kept an average of 20 people on their servers at peak hours daily and had several admins on its servers at any given time. As sad as it is to say, they're just not relevant anymore.

It seems MAF can try as hard as it likes but it takes a strong act of will to round enough people up to populate their servers, and then it's even harder to maintain them given this new playerbase's aversion to anything besides the same core maps. The amount of effort they must supply to keep themselves popular is exponentially more than it takes for these single-map servers and the clans who run them to just set it and forget it. As such, MAF's servers are sporadically and inconsistently populated, so you have to catch them at the right hours. I've played there before years ago, but haven't been able to catch them active at all since March. As far as alternatives go, they're just not available enough to be considered one.

In my experience, Legacy RTV gets hardly anyone. Any old duel server gets more population than they do routinely.

Plus whenever new content is released, there's usually multiple servers that try it out for a while. New content also temporarily brings back old vets. This happens every single release. There's a population surge after a release, then it dies down until next release. This pattern has been going on for years. That's just how it goes, people have other stuff to do and other games to play. When a game/mod gets stale people go find something else to play until there's an update or two. Then they come back to check it out again. MB2 looks no more doomed to me right now than it did 5 or even 10 years ago.

The only reason I was able to play Dxun at all is because EW wanted to try it, which came after the most recent update in March the 4th, which also came a few days after EW's big reunion. I have not seen it played in the US for a month since, and that's no exaggeration. To play Dxun, it took an ancient clan from a bygone era to reunite AND a new release to see this map played once for me for an entire month. This is just totally wrong, and shows just how little new content gets played by this new community.

 

[PuNk]

I for one love playing a large variety of maps. I am also bored to death by people constantly wanting dotf or deathstar only. It's why starting from January I've been organising weekly Open mode events with my clan on our private server, each sunday 2 different maps, because when we play Open on public servers we usually don't experience many different maps. By now I think there are only like 4-5 maps we still haven't played.
And I don't think this has to do much with having or not having RTV. Even with RTV players can still stick to same old if they have the majority.

 

[Haddon70]

MB2 is literally just DOTF, Deathstar, Jedi Temple and every now and then you get Lunarbase. Every other good map doesn't get played or are just used for trolling.

 

[MuscBodypillow]

Most maps are fine, except Smuggler, that's just a meme map to me.

To address the main point of this thread and the negative nancies. Stop making anything like these dumb thread, it's pointless, we're all going to die and the sun will melt the servers in 4 billion years.

Topic covered.

 

[Lessen]

I'm all for player freedom, but I will say I don't like the choices the big blob of free people are making, and effort COULD be taken to change the habits of that big blob. The big blob makes its choices unconsciously after all. A large portion of the big blob is people who WOULD play rotation if the rest of the blob would go along with it.

Namely, if a clan or other large group of people in approximately the same region (NA, or EU) all pledged to make an effort to populate a variety server (CB Rotation for instance), perhaps always at a particular time of day, then that server might be seen as populated frequently enough for other random newbies etc to wander onto it and then start to get a familiarity with more maps.

It would be a rather large amount of effort for a rather slow, gradual change, but it could work. It would gradually familiarize more of the "average players" with more maps. We just gotta populate the servers.

I'm mostly inactive now (waiting for a patch, and working on a sort of a mod) but when I was active I would actually most of the time join a low population or even empty server rather than join a populated but 24/7 server. If we got a bunch of people to pledge to do the same thing, (essentially boycotting 24/7 servers) then we could get somewhere.

Could campaign for this boycott on these forums, and on our respective clan discords.