Quiet Forum Pzazz-less

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The forum seems to have lost its pzazz. After many years it is hard to start topics that were not discussed before, especially, if there is no new game content to discuss.

I know that there are many readers on the forum, but also some of which would love to banter and have fun, but that is not really encouraged on this forum, even though it would liven up the forum, and maybe even get more of those readers to participate.

Anyway, all forums have periods of less posters, summer vacation, hot weather, Playing other game, etc. But there might also be the same effect happening that he game is suffering from.

Many people say the game has changed into a lesser version of it’s younger self. It has become easy and no longer scary. I rather believe that the player and their gear has changed. They got more experience, better weapons, so it isn’t very strange that the feeling of dread and doom isn’t the same. It never is, at least when I play a game. When fighting a main boss the first time I sometimes think I never going to defeat it, but when I learn its weak points and finally win, it will never be as hard as the first time again.

Then there’s the wait for new content. When new content is released, forum topics will pop up, with nice finds, or discussion on the new implementations.

Do you still have pzazz?

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I often delete a char and start fresh, or create my own rules to make the game harder. I.e. Empty my inventory, no Plundra and I can only use weapons I pick up in that session.

But that only last so long when you’ve exhausted everything the game has to offer. The grenade launcher glitch was great fun for a while, and we had fun trying to launch ourselves as far as we could across the map by stockpiling hundreds of has canisters but eventually my little community of players all drifted away to other titles. After 2 years of solid playing I guess it’s inevitable.

Ironically, I’ve never been more engaged with the game than I was in pursuit of the gnome ticks / masks which (AFAIK) have never even been officially acknowledged. The whole buzz and mystery surrounding them when they first appeared gave them a near mythical status.

If I could have a confidential one-to-one with the devs, it would be to find out what the hell was going on with those gnomes.

Some kind of hidden treasure hunt in a similar vein would drag me back in more than anything.

In fact, as an Xbox player, it’s the hunt for Soviet weapons I’m looking forward to more than any missions / base building / horde mode.

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Well, it’s common that during summer time, people spend less time at home playing and more time out, enjoying the nature. With that, activity in the forums also lowers.

Though, with new PO (Product Owner) in the helm, Zach, we’ve gotten sneak-peaks into the upcoming features. :slight_smile: That produces hype and activity in the forums, where players can discuss upcoming features, rather than discussing them once they have been released. Especally since when new update comes, players are busy playing the game and exploring the new features, rather than sitting in the forums, discussing about them.

The point of sneak-peak is to generate hype and discussions prior to the actual release. Else-ways, there won’t be any sneak-peaks, if devs don’t want players discussing confirmed upcoming features.

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It is indeed inevitable. For me as solo player, it is a bit different, but I too need to get new things to explore to keep me playing, otherwise I would be moving on too.

It is nice to see that the game does support so many different ways to enjoy it. For me the hunt for the Gnome Ticks never took hold, however. I tried it once after reading about it on the forum,but there was to much unknown about how to proceed that I never kept at it. That’s why I also never grind for a weapon, but found most of the Soviet ones.

But I have to say that I had fun building the Home base and getting all the Ammo mechanics. But what we really need is that big new island to give us a lot to do and to explore. I bet the forum would liven up instantly.

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I think that is a good way to up the hype, and it certainly gives players a lot to speculate about. Even though I do not very often get involved in these topics, because I clearly have a totally different way I look at the game. And also feel that I don’t have any expertise about scopes, ballistics, bullet drop, recoil and other weapon stuff, that is for me totally irrelevant for my experience of the game.

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Good topic.

I have no pzazz left for this game.

I still read the forums, but as you said, the forum isn’t directly encouraging new posts. Most new posts just gets locked down and movved to year old topics with TONS AND TONS of older and irrelevant posts in them.

Not the easy read if you actually are interested in the current state of the topic.

The game itself has been left in a state between mMORPG (minimal multiplayer online rpg) and an FPS.

As for the RPG elements, they do not speak to me what so ever. When I first found a weapon on a machine, I was surprised, but I also felt it did not belong. I could buy finding ammo, batteries and vision modules, but the other stuff did not belong. I could accept it, but it was not in the line of what I wanted from the game. It spun off from there, and now we have crafting, and clothing with stats and hallabalou, exp weapon drops and a shitload of boring grinding to do if you want you character to have the top RPG stats in the game. So boring.

Further, he new defend the base is just a really bad 3D version of tower defense.

As for the FPS elements, there has been NONE, nope, nothing, zip, whatsoever of improvements to these. This game had so much potential in actually adding more realistic game play, but it all has gone in the wrong way. Cars and explosives blow up very easily from other explosions converting them from tools for you to use vs the machines, to things to watch out for when fighting the machines.

Machine behavior is worse from the early versions. In the early version the movement of runners and hunters where more realistic, and hence slower and less agile. Current version defies physics and hunters and runners just looks ridiculous when changing direction and being hard to hit. Not to mention teleporting machines, or getting hit by jumping wall clipping teleporting hunters.

The FNIX Rising main end mission is not even fun. No tactics needed, just a big machine spam and its more like a shootem up than a tactical realistic FPS.

I loved this game when it came out, I still think it has so much potential to be a good realistic FPS with ABIT RPG elements in it. Now its the other way around. To much grinding, crafting, mission grinding, RNG grinding to be fun. Rival mechanics make absolutely no sense. Why avoid the rivals to make FNIX spawn the reaper? Shouldn’t the REAPER spawn when the Rivals prove themselves to be useless?

This game can still be so much, I’m still hoping, but seeing as they cant progress the FPS experience of this game, and all focus is just on new content, I think this game is lost.

This game lost its vision somewhere, maybe with the old product owner.

Needles to say I’m not playing any more.

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There actually have been. From the top of my mind:

  • being able to reload your weapon while sprinting ← that wasn’t possible prior to January '20 update.
  • being able to change ammo type with 1 key press, e.g from FMJ to AP or vice-versa ← that wasn’t possible prior to June '20 update (FNIX Rising).
  • oh, “aim toggle” was also introduced in June '20 update.
  • if you pick up a weapon that you have ammo for, the ammo gets equipped to that weapon automatically (can’t recall when it was introduced).
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Sorry, if I skip to the most saying of your post. The rest is just for the devs. It a bit sad that you lost the love for it. I hope that you find another game that is working for you.

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  • beeing able to reload while sprinting.
    Hard to say if this actually is an improvement. Its not realistic to reload a gun while sprinting at full speed. But it is a change sure.

  • Beeing able to change ammo type
    Sure this is an improvement to the GUI, I personally dont think this is an exclusive FPS element of the game. But sure.

  • Aim toggle
    Have missed this one. What does it do?

  • Autoequip ammo
    This can also be discussed, as you can pick up a rifle, store it in your plundra, and then you don’t have any ammo left, and need to go back to the plundra and re-equip all the ammo that followed with your gun. Improvement? Not sure.

I might have been vague in my prior post. With FPS elements I of course meant the actual combat. Machine movement, machine behavior such as aim, withdrawal, tactics, formation, ambushes, etc, etc, that Devs could have made machines do that would totally obliterate an unprepared, or an ignorant party of players without the need for aimbot aim, or wallhacks, or teleportation.

Even just to add a withdraw option for machines could render a player helpless not getting the loot from machines who runs away before beeing destroyed, etc, etc.

None of the above mentioned elements seems to never have been considered at all. They have never been mentioned, and never been implemented.

So what I meant to say instead of FPS elements, I guess, is FPS experience.

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I’ve always advocated that a bit of banter creates a nice atmosphere, provided that:

  1. The thread topic has been thoroughly discussed
  2. It is done respectfully with the thread creators consent
  3. It is mainly done in the “quiet” periods between updates etc.

It is a delicate topic, but I believe that a bit of banter adds value to the forum. If the forum provided an “off-topic” branch-out and merge-in feature, die-hards could skip these postings. But this is a forum about a game. We play for fun. And the forum should be entertaining. IMHO :blush:

And that is a shame. Members like to “own” a tread, and it is discouraging (especially for new members) to have your thread locked. Does it hurt anybody to let new threads live? This forum is not a categorized FAQ. Why not just add a link to previous treads and see what happens? Live and let live. IMHO :blush:

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Prior to the update, ADS (Aiming Down Sights) was only by when holding down a button (on PC, mouse right button). As long as you held it down, you were in ADS.

This option was included that when you want to be in ADS, all you need to do is to press/click that button once (if enabled) and press/click it again to exit ADS. This frees up the requirement of you holding down a button when in ADS. It’s convenience thing. I’m used to holding the button down though. :slight_smile:

Ammo following the weapon to the Plundra was also a change in the game devs made. Prior to the update, you could’ve stored any weapon with ammo loaded in, to Plundra, without any of the ammo going with the weapon.

I can’t recall when it was implemented, could’ve been the same time as automatic ammo equip to the weapon came. These two are different things though. And if i recall correctly, ammo moving with weapon to Plundra and back was done per player request, for convenience.

I vaguely remember dev bringing up an example, explaining why the ammo moves with the weapon to Plundra and back.
It went something along the lines of: E.g let’s say player has 12G shotty and player uses buckshot. Once player is done with the shotgun, player just needs to put the weapon into the Plundra, where all the ammo that this weapon uses, is also stored. This frees up more space in inventory and doesn’t require another step from player part to store the ammo individually. And once player decides to use the 12G shotty again, all that is needed is to take the weapon out from the Plundra and equip it. It already comes with the right ammo loaded into it.

More like machine behavior. This is also extensively discussed in the forums: Machine AI (post december '20 update)

This is done according to the Code of Conduct - Forums, namely:

Be courteous: Avoid duplicate posts
Cross posting is not allowed and will result in the removal of one or more posts. Cross posting is defined as posting the same information in two or more locations. When posting your topic, please try to post it in the most appropriate place within the organizational structure of our community. Identical topics posted in the same or different forums will be removed. Topics posted in the wrong forum will be moved.

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Yep, I know. What I suggest is, that this rule should be changed to a guideline and managed at the mods discretion. A rule can be counterproductive and even wrong The forum is for the members, not the other way around :wink:

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Yes, forum is for player base and feedback of the game, including bug reports and all other content regarding the game. But forum is also owned by Systemic Reaction (devs) and they are the ones who created CoC. They are also the only ones who can change it, if they so desire.
But the fact that forums are privately owned website, means that players can’t pressure for a change, as it would be with e.g public laws, where people can ask (or demand) for a change in the laws and legislator then changes the law according to the people needs (at least in Democratic form of government).

I’m not going into the politics any more and discuss what kind of form of government is in use on privately owned websites, and/or how Systemic Reaction chooses to manage their asset, since that is against CoC. But this much i can say that Freedom of speech rights doesn’t apply in here.

Freedom of speech rights do not extend to privately owned websites, such as this one. This Code of Conduct detail the types of behavior and activities that are allowed here.

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Hence the word “counterproductive”. Privately held companies usually pay attention to that :blush:. If I, as a newcomer, had my first thread locked being pointed to an 18 month old thread where half of the posters probably ain’t active on the forum anymore, I would feel … well … less that welcome. But that is just me :blush:

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For that, there is a clause in CoC as well:

Interpretation of our Code of Conduct is at the discretion of the staff.

Resulting in a different form of moderation between different moderators. E.g one mod can merge the duplicate topic with another one; while other mod can remove (delete) the duplicate topic entirely (as stated in CoC). It all comes down the interpretation.

Of course, every new member in the forums should read the CoC and decide if they are willing or not to accept it.
“Ignorantia juris non excusat” ← from Latin. :slight_smile:

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You are pulling my leg, @Aesyle :joy: Lovely, you got me there :+1:

Cheers

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Hello everyone, I have cleaned up this thread. I am happy to see forum members conversing, let’s be sure to keep things civil and productive though. Thanks!

Removed all unnecessary comments not pertaining to the topic
//Mod

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Here, we could discuss what is the thing(s) that bring more people to the forums and keeps people posting their ideas and discussing game content.

Is it the Forum CoC? I don’t think so. It has been in place since the forums went live more than 2 years ago.
But what then?

Gysbert said one of the most likely causes:

And i agree. It’s the game itself. When new content comes, there is always an influx in the forums, with people coming back, discussing new content and also reporting new bugs found in the game. New content also gives players more ideas to ask from the game, e.g like this topic was made after the base building came: Feedback Request - Cosmetic structures for base building

So, what do we need in the forums?

  • More, new topics?
    Well, for that, we’d need more new game content to discuss.

  • More, new people?
    For that - marketing. Devs would need to market the game to more people and also share their platforms where people can discuss the game. Forum is already getting quite a bit of marketing since it’s the only place where proper bug reporting can take place and people are guided from other platforms (e.g Discord, Steam discussions) to the forums.

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And I agree with you and @Gysbert (lovely, isn’t it :blush:). But shouldn’t there also be some influx of new players? Obviously, I don’t know how many new users that sign up to the forum these days, but perhaps they should be allowed to have the same fun discussions as we veterans had “back then”. Therefore, go easy on duplicated threads from New posters

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What you’re agreeing with me? My heart just skipped a beat. :wink: Well I am agreeing with your input so far. Not pulling your leg or other limb, you actually took the words out of my mouth.

:sunny: Maybe the mods could give it a trial period, see how this is working out with modding. It is obvious to see when the right topic is started it sparks great interest to participate. Especially if no specific knowledge is needed to pitch in. People love to talk.

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