A piece of Deathmatch feedback

Trotim

Well-Known Member
Someone sent me this but wanted to stay anonymous:

I can say that I was definitely looking forward to your work on the TF2C DM mode; the whole mod seemed to be garnering interest, and people seemed to dive on it when in beta. Unfortunately, my first experience of this was nothing but disappointing. The game opens up with an impressive (and better than the unmodded TF2) intro and menu system, it looks like a beta (which I must clarify, in development usually indicates a game that has pretty much all final elements present, but may be unpolished, and has some remaining bugs).  

Getting into the game was less impressive.  For all of the flash and features, it feels like very little effort if any had gone into the actual gameplay; none of the weapons have been rebalanced for DM (most weapons were not designed to deal with frantic combat against multiple people), which is a vastly different game mode to stock TF2. It feels like a prototype, proof that the game mode can be done, not an almost finished product.

Based upon my experience with more classic DM games, the gameplay is certainly slower.  This could be fine, and could be one of the elements that makes this game more unique.  The problem here is that the slowness mainly stems from slow reload speeds, time taken to get a usable weapon, and then finding an actual good weapon.  This isn't a problem in classic DMs; reload speed is rapid, your character sprints like a superhero, and the maps are not particularly large.  Here it is super emphasized, and just gets in the way of the actual gameplay. I have some other points I noticed, but I have fed these back to Trotim already.

My final question is, why was the core of this mode left until this point?  These are the elements that make up how this mode plays, and have been left off for the more fun to program elements. I can completely understand the desire to do this, as I am a developer myself, but it is important to work against this.  This needs to be managed.  If this is being done as practice and preparation for professional work, my advice would be to tackle project management ASAP.
 
My responses to the Someone ps im no dev.
<div style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal;">it looks like a beta (which I must clarify, in development usually indicates a game that has pretty much all final elements present...
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.3px; line-height: 20.02px;">The game is a passion project, that means that not all developers can work on it full time nor is it backed by AAA funding. Which also means that in order to get good game play feedback the game needs to be open to play testers to fill servers.</span></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.3px; line-height: 20.02px;">
</span>it feels like very little effort if any had gone into the actual gameplay; none of the weapons have been rebalanced for DM<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.3px; line-height: 20.02px;">
</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.3px; line-height: 20.02px;">Like before, the game doesn't have AAA funding and full time developers. Also DM has not been out for long and only in one update. And the recent Source SDK security exploit has practically put testing to a halt. Also you say: </span>It feels like a prototype, proof that the game mode can be done... that is the point, the game is in beta and the devs don't what to invest hours going in the wrong direction, just to find the community tells them to start all over. With community input a more satisfying game can be made.  
Based upon my experience with more classic DM games, the gameplay is certainly slower.
I haven't played classic DM's so I don't know. But you say you can't sprint around fast, if you want to sprint around fast, learn how to bunny hop. It's fun fun fun.the maps are not particularly large.
I agree.



why was the core of this mode left until this point?

<span style="font-size: 14.3px; line-height: 20.02px;">To get community input and testing, so they don't waste time making things that people wont like.</span><span style="font-size: 14.3px; line-height: 20.02px;">
</span>Basically<span style="font-size: 14.3px; line-height: 20.02px;"> you should understand that beta is open testing. Beta means different things depending on the scale of a project. In a AAA, beta will mean it is almost finished. But in a passion project, beta isn't a good indicate how far in development the game is. Beta's have lasted many years for some games, and unfortanly never ends for so many.</span><span style="font-size: 14.3px; line-height: 20.02px;">
</span><span style="font-size: 14.3px; line-height: 20.02px;">p.s. sorry for odd </span>formatting
 
Their response:

Passion project or not, I presume the goal is for the project to be successful, and garner a following. Sure there is some hype now, but first impressions are everything. When people get tired of the gameplay, chances are they won't come back, people are fickle. Just because this is not a triple A title, does not mean it is a good idea to not learn anything from their basic process. The games industry is a monster that eats talent, but you can at least say that they have experience in what makes a game fail fast.

Limited time isn't the issue; the problem is where time was spent. I can understand if it looked rough but played okay, hell, I would still be playing it now (I miss a good DM, I honestly wanted to enjoy this).  Even security issues aren't a priority at this stage; you have security through obscurity for now... unless they allow for more than simple exploits. I can understand if they can gain root access...though the servers would ideally be set up to not allow a game server to obtain root permissions from it.

As for speed, I am not sure movement is an issue. A DM with slow movement should be viable, but maps need to be designed to cater for that. Regarding bunny hopping, designing an exploit into a game isn't something I agree with anyway (rocket jumping...crouch jumping...).

You can change the definition of beta, sure, but remember that you need to be managing people's expectations, and by calling this a beta you are only making this harder for yourself.
 

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