The problem with this game is the fanbase

Gameplay
#1

KC very wrongly makes a very profound game with a lot of mechanics and never bothers to explain them, leaving it very ambigous how the game actually works. When you combine this with a fanbase that emotionally invested to the game as the basis for a community, you end up with people who don’t understand how the game works but will continuously make excuses for the inconsistency and confusion that the lack of tutorials provides.

Since the game is seemingly inconsistent, people come to forums asking for help only to be greeted with people offering extremely vague advice and victim blaming, adding to the confusion. “You just have to practice and be really smart and not dumb like people who mash buttons(our intelligence is why we love this game)” is about all the advice you can squeeze out of people. You go back to the game, win without really understanding why, and just end up feeling unsatisfied because without understanding and consistency, you can’t really master the game, you can merely get through it.

This is why people gravitate towards master strikes: it is a guranteed hit, you know exactly how it works, and you can handily defeat enemies with it. Yet, there clearly is a lot more to the game, which is impenetrable to the player, because there’s no real way of finding out short of modding the game to have extrenely controlled conditions for you to experiment. Had the developers stayed away from the edgy “we don’t spoonfeed you” approach, you could have had a much more satisfying game with a much higher skill ceiling. I’ve literally seen videos claiming to be COMBAT MASTERY TUTORIALS and the player is fumbling around for 3 minutes trying to show you something becauae they cannot consistently wxecute because they don’t really understand the mechanics

8 Likes
#2

You have some valid points. Many of the systems in the game leave you second guessing. I think we would all benefit from more clarity there.

The fans thing. I don’t think this is accurate. There are so many people who genuinely love the idea of game in the forum’s, they give really valid criticisms. go look at some of the from the ashes dlc threads. Players that are in for the long haul not pulling punches, well aware of the failings. I have seen plenty be helpful to newcomers.

That said there are one or two fucktards who fit the description in your post but that goes for most game forums to be fair. It won’t take you long to figure out who they are. Probably the same goon with different accounts and too much time on their hands.

Combat is by no means perfect and room for improvement. Me personally, I find it more interesting than how many other RPGs have handled melee combat for now.

9 Likes
#3

The weird thing is that by defending their misunderstand of the combat is, they make the combat seem worse. It always seems that games that even give a whiff of patience being involved attract this kind of person

1 Like
#4

Great thread Zeedog. Obviously this forum is a toxis mess but that is what you get if rules are not strict. The devs should have read the Hagakure and know that too much toleration leads to strict and therefor it is better to be strict from the beginning. I’d say, a good start would be to ban certain troll. The approach from WH obviously seems to be unfruiteful, looking at Steam Charts and reviews. People seemly cannot be trown into a debt and then expect to understand anything. Something like that has to come slowly.

2 Likes
#5

For a wee while the forums were overflowing with people and the ability to maintain order was compromised.

They didnt ‘hit the ground running’ at that time, with forum control, likely in part to being lulled into feeling loving and nurturing of forum members…
These forums were built for Kickstarter project backers.
For years would have had a VERY HIGH LEVEL of positivity and comeraderie.

On game release the forums explode.
Many angry types started a ‘tit for tat’ cut down on others.
Happiness dwindled.

Many left.

Until recently we didnt hear bugger all from the devs here either.
This didnt help things… looking like an ‘absent landlord’.

They did, at the height of the commotion, close a few threads- and that bought down fire and brimstone as the offended thread runners just ramped up their efforts, now with ‘fuel on the fire’.

Forum sense of community is returning.
It is wonderful to see long term posters, gone for awhile, share posts.
Like other forums; many times more readers than actual posters.

The group of medieval enthusiasts alone makes this webforum a valuable place to be.

Oh yeah- now alt accounts appears to be a thing again due to forum mechanics.

Apparently giving ‘power to the people’ is a thing to be abused.

The big issue on forums is the lack of ‘likes’ being focused.
If points that further a discussion, ON TOPIC, are “voted for”(LIKE’d), the meaningful posts gravitate to the top or are easy to find…

I do think a few stickied posts introducing to the forum and linking to current quality useful threads should exist.
Would decrease number of repeating thread headings no doubt…

Of course with this… the toxicity in the OPs thread (seeing bitterly some aspects here), leads of course to bait thread headings that might flame others into abusive doscussion.
The natural response to that same statement when the forums were 20x more active was to just rehighlight all the issues the devs have exacerbated and put the blame firmly in their court- rehumanising the ‘its alright for me to be angry (and vocal)’ approach.

I get why mods stopped being finicky and are now lighthanded in their approach.

The angry bears liked to say (when guided to use the forum search function for their constantly repeating threads) “I will post wherever and whenever woth whatever I want”, “there is nothing you can do about it”.

People dont come to forums to be made to feel helpless.
Quite the opposite I’d suggest.

As smileys are free I will give one now- :slight_smile:

7 Likes
#6

either that or it’s just a coping mechanism for being too dumb to learn how to play the game.

#7

Fuel, meet fire.

#8

None of that really matters. The point of the topic is that the combination is fanboyism with the game’s lack of explanation led to people defending the game without understanding how the game worked, making finding out how it worked basically impossible. For months all people give me is “try harder” or their personal cheese strategy, but not really explain how game mechanics worked.

You can find videos explaining how movesets work frame by frame in other games, but for this, you cannot, because the community is so lacking in understanding and so embroiled in fanboy drama that nobody can really get down to understanding the mechanics. The developers need to make some sort of manual or video to fill in all the gaps that the game does not explain, because for now, it seems to boil down to a bunch of stuff happening and then you win somehow and you don’t feel in control of what happened

1 Like
#9

That is true of much observation.

We generate ideas and then check them out.
True; no ones written down how ‘the magic formula works’.

Not a fanboy statement when I say; welcome to 80%+ of RPGs made in 80s-90s.
Not FAQs/no internet filled with solutuons guide.
I wouldnt blame a studio for not releasing that information (its evident they like that gamers can focus on learning by trial and error, like life, rather than applying a sum of parts with a guaranteed outcome.

Most of replay ability I have found has been in testing these systems.
I avoid any chance of being told by others ‘whats going on’; but then back in ‘might and magic’ days I thoroughly enjoyed writing down all equipments descriptors and building a table to figure out what each name description actually meant.
(It was apart of the mystery)

I suppose for now I will just have to say ‘different strokes for different blokes’.
My interest in this game would be massively lessened of I wasnt figuring out the backend systems.

Cause and effect.
If i know ahead of time what leads to a specific outcome, I am hardly going to experiment.

The problem now isnt the games fanbase, it is that youve not gotten your ideal game.
You moght reason ‘your ideal game’ is given everywhere else, why cant this be the same?

Without buying into your argument and me being devils advocate (go play the games that suit you! (?)), I do feel that your lack of hint guide documentation isnt a shortcoming to many.
Games that try to please everyone is the lionshare of commercially viable projects/products made.
RPGs are not commercially viable, especially when hardcore.
Instead of diliting this game into a product that suits no one… how about we acknowledge it isnt for us…

Or am I now saying your ‘git gud’ proposition; that us forum hoers are very vookie cut clones all espousing the same info?

Just because my views are not the same as yours -doesnt make either of us wrong. (In the same way neither of us are ‘right’)

Lucas and Spielberg decided to make movies because there was nothing to watch that they wanted to see.
We are lucky for their effort.

Maybe be apart of the solution.
Start a thread listing the metrics you feel you need.
Write it with positive tone and excite contributions.
Be the change.
Make your vision happen.

1 Like
#10

That is now ruined permantly……

1 Like
#11

There is a difference between recombining all the possible game mechanics into endless strategies and the game not explaining how it works. On top of that, this is a terrible game to experiment anything on because it is so difficult to get anything resembling controlled conditions. What you end up with is fanboy imagination rationalizing what’s happening without understanding. I’ve seen so many people anthropomorphise the AI when it does something they don’t understand, like the AI has skill that outplayed them, but they have no idea what skill would even mean because they don’t know what is under their control and when.

The conditions of extreme fanboyism and poor tutorials has made this game into a mess of myths and misunderstading, which then leave players who want more out of the game instead of merely getting through to have to follow these wild goose chases over the game’s mechanics. If the game is merely RNG then I want the developers to just state it so I can give up trying to understand it, because this type of game is ripe for seeing patterns that aren’t there

1 Like
#12

20180716_151136
20180716_151136.jpg3264×1836 1.86 MB

This came up in my daughters game today, whilst I was on this thread…
Game is ‘danganronpa’.

Staying on topic - this isnt just random number generated outcomes. Your point is just rehashed.
Is it getting more elegant or, like you’ve been saying of counter arguments ‘fanboi’d’; I dunno.

I agree the numbers need to make sense.
Truly I believe that several game backends get broken with any given patch.
In truth- I believe that is why the data hasnt been,in any meaningful way, tabulated.

#13

A post os going around the world right now about the game aliens: colonial marines

After years of dev, and a massive budget, and more dev… it launched and played atrociously.

Bad numbers in reviews and it really hurt the ‘alien’ franchise (awesome Isolation was an gold award, phew!)…

Anyway - after all these years they have isentified it was one byte of data (a single character) that had busted the AI.

The team, after release did so much to make the game fun, rebalancing attacks and all sorts of things, all due to one byte that was in error.

At least they found it!

KCD, having multiple issues, many random (especially on closed systems) is insane and a development nightmare.

Some of the patch issues that worsened situations was no doubt fatigue as they continued to work on, for months, after having ‘gone gold’.

Once the issues get cleared up, whats left over will probably point/identify to some of the random ones.
Or they will just cease to be as they are symptoms from other causes.

It is coming together and the team are commited.

No one could have predicted this much trouble. And infairness, a lil bit of trouble is easy to fix… a bit to much? The levy breaks…

#14
  1. Guys, be aware that there are people who work as community managers for one gaming company, and as a paid trolls for other company by night. Those part time jobs usually offer like 200-500 dollarrs.

Such paid troll can be identified by “generic” posts. Such as “my account was banned for no reason” (if applicable) or “game is broken” without actually posting the issue, or criticizing the community without actually mentioning ANY of the game mechanics.

I would say that OP had crashcourse on combat system, but thats it. Else he would know that combat mechanics are explained in one tutorial quests in Rattay - which is about 2 hours in gameplay.

#15

So you would like some video tutorials explaining combat and mechanics of game?

#16

The “like-system” is inherently flawed. All the negative people have to do is “Like” each others postings. Hey presto. They are at the top.

I can live with a system where people who are abusive in their language use are banned. First time for a week. Second time forever.
But even that is flawed.

What I REALLY hate is for some guys to be able to post again and again using abusive language… And get away with it, while others who react to said language and call the person out because “enough is enough”, is given a stern warning.

5 Likes
#17

I’d like to focus on the message of your title - «The problem with this game is the fanbase» - and explain, assertively, why I believe this to be wrong.

Making assumptions based on personal experience is always dangerous. I’ve only recently started to visit these forums, and I’ve posted a few times. I have seen criticisms, mostly about technical issues, obviously, but not specific cases of toxicity or open abuse between visitors.

Now, I’m not saying that these haven’t happened, and maybe the OP and others have witnessed episodes like these. But in no way should you presume those examples to be expressive of the game’s fanbase.

According to online sources, Kingdom Come Deliverance sold a million copies in two weeks. And many people (like myself) decided to wait, because of reports that the game had several bugs in its launch version. I’ve bought it 2 or 3 weeks ago. And in the past month I’ve seen lots of positive feedback about the game. The “word of mouth”, in social media, is mostly positive. Even people reporting pending issues (like pop-in in console versions) still state that what this game has to offer is unparalleled. That’s also where I stand. I’ve reported such problems, constructively, here on the forums, but still reinforced positive feedback - because the positives far exceed the negatives.

But the main reason to object to the message that “The problem with this game is the fanbase” has to do with the fact that it is a very dangerous stance - especially if adopted by devs or pr people (although I believe they know better).

This is something that people need to learn. Social media is a very new phenomenon. Look at Facebook, for example. FB was launched in 2004, but it really only exploded in 2009. So it really is a decade old phenomenon. People who manage online communities - which are social media platforms - need to understand the processes that take place, and manage them accordingly.

Here’s why. In an online platform, if you have a dozen, two dozens, fifty, or even a hundred people, consistently posting negative feedback, the outcome of that is absolutely destructive to that website’s environment. It’s absolutely toxic, and you may leave with the perception that that entire community is a hell whole.

But the truth - the absolute truth - is that even a hundred negative voices is absolutely irrelevant, statistically. When you see certain websites criticizing entire fandoms - surrounding popular artists or franchises - people forget that even a thousand voices, or 10 thousand voices, would be statistically indifferent. That’s not to say that, sometimes, artists, creations, products, don’t fail, and disappoint large audiences. But you can’t classify an entire fandom - even a disappointed one - from a hundred toxic goons who decide to stalk a celebrity on Instagram or Twitter.

Long story short: don’t let yourself be fooled by the most negative voices. They don’t represent the majority of the people. And from the feedback we can see out there, I think most people admire what Warhorse has done here, and are entirely supportive of this game - and its inevitable (and certainly very desired) sequels, for years to come.

9 Likes
#18

As time permits (WH $ and resourcing), I wish the mentor would enlighten the mentee in situ. In martial arts, the framework, theory, etc are part of what is learned via discussions between the mentor and mentee. Can’t imagine trades apprenticeships are different.

#19

I’d like to think it isn’t RNG(and there seem to certain patterns), but there’s really no way of finding out from the game tutorials, or even just spending hours fighting Bernard. If it really is broke and certain things happen on certain glitched files, then I honestly wouldn’t be able to know either. If we knew the logic of the combat and the AI, then yeah, we would know this or that file is glitched

#20

I’ve spent hours and hours training with Bernard, scoured youtube videos(none of which can execute anything with any consistency), asked on multiple forums where people don’t know anything, yet stay loyal to their faith, and just generally replayed battles over and over trying to see if there’s anything I’m not getting. Any lead that seems to make sense eventually just randomly stops working and I’m back at square one

Most of the problem is that nobody knows what the developers mean by the AIs skill or expectations. What does it mean for the AI to expect something, what does it do, and what does the player do to trigger it? So for example, you can attack at an enemy’s open spot with a feint, from the right range, and it will sometimes randomly master strike. We know that the AI will block more from a specific direction if you keep attacking there. So does that mean it’s guard will be in that direction, or that attacks in that direction will be perfect blocked or master strike’d more often?

We also know that attacking from an open direction makes the timing window for the AI tighter. What does it mean for an AI to have timing here? Is there a specific amount of time each individual AI has to block an attack before it will necessarily hit, and thus for a given AI if attacked from that direction it will always not have the time to block? Or is there a range of timing based on RNG or some other variable that determines if a strike can go in? Considering that hit, block, perfect block, and master strike are all timing here, you’d have no idea when a strike can go in unless you knew how timing defense for the AI worked. If it’s RNG then you just stop worrying about it and do stealth to make each fight easier. If it’s some other variable(like morale), then that would be good to know(and knowing the extent of the effect too)

The game for example, tells you to always keep moving. Which direction and why? What benefit does strafing give you, as opposed to moving backwards? Does the frequency of direction changes affect anything? The game also says feint helps deceive defense. What does that mean? Does their timing window get tighter? Why not just do a regular attack in the open direction? How does the AI expectations work with feint? What if I feint into a direction that I attacked a lot, but was open at the time? Is the AI expectation decreased by the feint to counter the AI expectation enough that it is better than attacking a guarded direction with no expectation? Does the frequency of attacks play into this, does movement, or morale?

Do you see how this is a minefield of placebo effects? The community being what it is mixed with the placebo means that the community would actively misrepresent how the game works, and you have no way of finding out yourself through the game tutorials. If YOUR game works consistently, then the game is glitched, because I and a huge chunk of the playerbase get inconsistent results.

1 Like
© 2015 Warhorse Studios www.warhorsestudios.cz