Iron Mace Help ! Players Missing !

[@DannyLotus]

the part about them not being able to do anything without SDF physically present is really concerning and explains a lot

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I was honestly flabbergasted when Terry said as much during the interview. With software it comes down to what extent SDF is critical and to what degree him being unavailable hinders operation. On the one hand, he could have oversight and approval on creative changes routed through his office for review and approval. Fair Enough. On the more insidious other hand, He may be the only engineer who understands and is able to work in wide sections of the code base, either due to his legacy knowledge or how badly documented or written that section of the code is. If it's close to the first, it's pretty easy to rewire that process and chop the responsibilities between one or more team members. If it's the latter, there is no quick fix and that level of tech debt has demolished much larger and better resourced companies. It's likely somewhere in the middle. Small teams can scale if the process which drives the work is solid. If you throw more money at bad process, you get more of the same. From the outside looking in, it feels more like the latter than the former. It's frankly terrifying.

[@Rikuto01]

It makes sense to me. When you first start a game with a small team, you generally only have a couple of people who really understand the code. And when you onboard people, it takes a while to help them understand the spaghetti before they can really do much with it. He did say they were onboarding but it was taking longer than they wanted. So that's pretty much just where they are with it.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@Rikuto01 Not to mention the overall drag of having to hire a bunch of folks, realize that some of them have no idea which way is up, release them, go back to 1.

[@Rikuto01]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Tbh I can sort of empathize with SDF on one point. If you are onboarding and they don't really know the spaghetti yet, would you trust them not to break something when you're out of the office? A simple hotfix could take the game out of commission for weeks and you wouldn't be around to fix it. In DaD's case, that would probably be a game-ending event. I feel like that's probably where a lot of this comes from LOL

[@puffallo1935]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le We need you to get in touch with the devs asap, got any idea how the community could do that?

[@Zenweaponry]

Thank you Koopa for always being the long form voice of constructive criticism. You are such a breath of fresh air for anyone who regularly reads the forums of DaD.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the kind words, as long time viewers know, I just want the game to succeed. I try to be measured in that criticism, and sometimes it results in me be accused of going to soft, and sometimes being to harsh.

[@thechekko]

I love rolling a d20 to guess how many days left till next patch

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

or when the new season will start ? or when it will end ? or how many down-time windows they'll need to achieve a release ? But I digress.

[@davidrousseau100]

Arena is fun but badly implemented and nobody cares about religions at all tbh

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think the RMTers really appreciated the extra luck they got in the first season, but I'm not 100% sure.

[@subjectdelta5348]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Oh for sure, it was funny watching someone cheat the system to put 1 million gold in donations to blythar.

[@hubianhubhub6397]

Agreed with everything you said. I’ve been saying this for a long time that there inside operations just seems very poor. I remember there was an interview, I believe with One Peg where Grayson and SDF mention they’re reaching +70 employees. “Am I like… so with progression of the game, why has everything been so slow?”. I understand they’re a small company, probably don’t have experience running one in the first place, but is time to start hiring the right guys for each section of the business.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Indeed. It's one thing to make a game and another thing to operate it ( and the business) . I've worked in a lot of development shops, and it's pretty common to encounter a team who thinks they are too elite to need process, or that process is waste of time and will just slow them down. Now, I don't know that this is the case over there, but it sure does feel like it from the outside. Hiring strong performers in key roles is the next step and It feels like they don't think they need the help.

[@Neopopulist]

They won’t do anything about RWT, it’s a huge reason noobs and bad players keep playing. Imagine the drop off of players if they suddenly said RWT was easily detectable and is a permanent ban. Ironmace suffers from success. Their game blew up like nobody would expect and they took on way too much in a short time period. I think the game will eventually fail if they don’t start communicating with the community heavily. Even just starting with polls on what class we think is overpowered or needs a nerf, that would show everyone that at least they are listening.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

To put a slightly different spin on your comment, I think they will be in trouble if they can't begin to justify their balancing decisions with data. As far as we know, all they are using for balancing is Kentucky windage. I would love to see them just abruptly turn off the marketplace and trade channel for a few weeks and see what happens. If you don't have consistency for the RMT crowd, will just move on. Hey SDF, let try turning off all trading for a couple of weeks a month a measure the results ?

[@sebastianleister355]

​@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le wouldn't that piss actual players off too?

[@dotapazappy]

@@sebastianleister355 Yes but the actual players are already pissed off and quitting because we're sick of RMTing and cheaters. Pull the bandaid off and fix it or lose something bigger like an arm and a leg later on.

[@dantedeloden]

I can sell gps?!?! I can barely hold gp ROFL.

[@zaikolebolsh5724]

What is RWT? SDF or RMT? Im not familiar with those

[@CybergoonTV]

Drops and Steam release should have been a massive boost but all the delays of content that was promised and the poor "balancing" is unfortunately the culprit here.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

It's troubling that we haven't seen a bump from these promotional activities. More than a few folks here are downing playing the player population drop as natural, I just can't agree. If I were the boss over there, we'd have a team working on and trying to better understand player retention.

[@CybergoonTV]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le I agree. The drop in players is Ironmace's own fault, it's definitely not natural. They still haven't gotten past their amateur phase, and I doubt they will tbh.

[@Conmaan]

I agree with the sentiments surrounding communication. Especially for an early access game. But I am willing to give Ironmace some grace here since the discord community is full of some of the most vitriolic comments I have ever seen - especially in the general chat. I thought Ruins was a meaningfully content rich redesign and personally was quite satisfied with the introduction of the new boss. I've sunk close to another fifty or so hours into D&D since the latest update. While Arena is massively flawed in it's current state, it's an important step towards the new player pipeline (giving a "risk free" opportunity to test out classes, gauge skill, and try out found equipment). I don't think player count during this period of development is a meaningful metric. There are bound to be ebbs and flows just as there are with any game - early access or not. I haven't experienced any rubber banding or server issues so I can't comment on that. Lastly, I think the speculations around the business side of Ironmace is counterproductive. Who are we to assume that they haven't already internally acknowledged and made steps towards resolving the critical man issue? What does publicly shaming their business practices solve? Either the executive team is competent and they are already working on it and that's why they addressed the issue in the Onepeg interview, or they haven't addressed it and likely won't - and criticizing them for not addressing those issues will not force them to. Not to say that mismanagement leading to the downfall of the game would not be a justified reason to be upset as an early access player (all of us here) and as a content creator (Koopa) - but I think it's premature to be putting the team on blast like this.

[@theseusandaphaea]

I also agree that a lot of the discourse on DaD's discord is quite vile and unacceptable, but Ironmace can still communicate their thoughts, ideas, and whatnot in their #announcements. For example, giving more depth and reasoning to each change (not fixes). I'm sure there are ways for them to gather fairly accurate thoughts and problems players as many other competitive (and conseqeunty so, toxic) communities in games also must do. I'm on the same page with the Ruins remaster. However, I am concerned with the time it took for it to be complete. I think I count around 3 months, so a wipe or so. I find that to be a possible issue when DaD has so many problems that are still unsolved (i.e. rubberbanding), missing features not fulfilled from promises in the past (not including the ones that should be in this game by now, for example a spell-like-wheel for the belt). I'm optimistic they can eventually achieve a more fully-fleshed out and polished game, but before most players leave. Not sure. On the thought on the importance of the playercount, I think both you and Koopa are both right in a sense. I both agree that ebbs and flows are typical of any game's playercount, and that playercount is an important metric to watch. The peaks that we are seeing after the steam launch seem to be dwindling which I think is natural as hype dies down, but can be a bad sign if we continue to see this trend for several or more months. If a good percentage of your players are consistently leaving after 6 months or so after a major hype build-up, I think that is evidence your game is doing one or multiple things (as IM is definitely doing), terribly wrong. I do wonder why the experiences or lack thereof, on rubberbanding in DaD to be so here-and-there. Me, personally, I have always experienced a degree of rubberbanding in DaD, at some times killing me. I find it unlikely to be an issue IM is unaware of given how many report experiencing it. Given that, it's pretty sad we are still having a fairly fun/immersion-breaking problem this far into development. Note: I have verified that any rubberbanding isn't on my end by consistently playing other games with no issues (in a variety of server locations) and checking my connection. On the proposed critical man issue, I think it might be disengenuous to suggest that IM's lack of communication is the cause of a toxic community, to then excuse not mentionting if (or what) they have a(s) solution to the critical man issue in an agreed interview with a respectful interviewer. I also don't understand how Koopa is prematurely putting IM on blast for something they have had due time and opportunity to respond to. I understand the idea of not putting a dev team on blast for something they either have no control over or had no time to prepare processes and/or thoughts. But they have? At least for the thoughts side of things.

[@Conmaan]

@@theseusandaphaea I think it’s a normal and healthy thing for player count to go down over time. This happens with most games, even ones considered massively successful. Do we feel Terraria is somehow less than because the avg player count is half of what it was 12mo ago? I don’t think so - I’m excited for the future of the game. It’s not a one to one comparison, of course, but it’s not really meant to be. It’s just an illustration of the modern age of gaming we live in - live service. D&D is a live service game. And an unfinished one at that - as an early access title. Future D&D content will bring numbers back to near-peak, people will play for a bit, then casual players will drop off to play whatever else is in their game library. And those that are left are the more hardcore fans, the kind that sink dozens or hundreds of hours in over time, with trickles of new players as it pops up on store pages and twitch streams and the like. And as long as the player count doesn’t significantly impact match query times or item sale frequency - there is no issue. I think as a community, we just need to have a little patience before we start being so critical.

[@theseusandaphaea]

@@Conmaan Fair enough, I don't fully agree but I respect your opinion and thoughts. I agree that as a community it'd be ideal to have sympathy and give the benefit of the doubt. It's just cases like the critical man issue where they've had good opportunities to clear thingy up, assuming the lawsuit doesn't stop them. Otherwise that, I hope you have a good one.

[@Conmaan]

@@theseusandaphaea Thanks for discussing! I appreciated the candor.

[@Bogman-w5z]

remember that arena is in it's earliest form right now, it's going to get significantly better gradually

[@urbangent253]

I have no idea why so many people are giving you hate, these are very reasonable questions and concerns. Ima drop this video in my community.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thank you for doing that. I don't feel like I'm really asking any tough questions here. I don't feel like any of these are crazy demands, but thanks for the encouragement.

[@CovertSin]

Me 5 hours in... "spider mummies suck" Me 500 hours in... "please remove spider mummies"! Me 2000 hours in... "GET RID OF THE DAMN SPIDER MUMMIES!!!"

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

No one love the spider mummies, but how would we 'surf' without them ?

[@DokjaTTV]

Knights is an awful concept because most of them have a power trip in the community. Plus they get paid.

[@ruhrohrag]

they get paid??? thats fucked

[@DokjaTTV]

@@ruhrohrag A certain knight leaked it yeah.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Do you have any first had experience with the Knight system ? I've yet to meet anyone who had anything to say about it, good or bad. If feels akin to ' we know you all are going to be bad at this and it won't be fun, but here are some volunteers to tutor you in lui of any real curriculum.' Wait, I guess they are professionals if they are getting paid.

[@DokjaTTV]

@WrathofKoopa-fs8le I was friends with a knight for about 3 days. We played hella good together. Then he was making fun of me for no reason, harassed and insulted me. He was so sure about what he was saying even though his solo play was absolute dogshit.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@DokjaTTV Well, that's an extremely disappointing story. I applied and was rejected from the knight program. Now I know it was neither my skills nor my people skill which were to blame. It must be my public history of disagreement. Shit, You've gotten me thinking about how or if they review any of the 'knight' interactions at all. Thanks for replying mate.

[@beh256]

Just want to point out that on today's weak of arena you get timed out after you play arena game. So how most of myine games go is i get a awful team or the enemy team is wearing bis out of thier mind and one shoting you with a icebolt. And after that awful game you have to wait 400s to be able to have a chance at a better game

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Please don't get me started.... It's like they don't even test their builds.

[@pogingbak]

Same thing with Dungeonborne. This is what I'm saying to spammers and griefers on steam comments, after the wipe players will flood-in and will gradually lose its players. Not sure why they Ironmace don't improve or at least have a plan for player retention, its plainly sad. Guess will need to wait for another wipe for the players to come back, hopefully they do better

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I have no experience with Dungeonborne, but I share your hope that we'll see some improvements and soon. Thanks for watching !

[@Rosie-fd1fn]

commenting for awareness because you are making so many great points. there should be polls or something for them to gauge where the playerbase is at, other than what streamers say..

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for watching. I'm trying to compile some data for them with my tiny slice of perspective.

[@Smok3Knight]

Koopa let some of that wrath out today

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I must have been a bad mood, I've had several people tell me I'm being too harsh. And that I need to get an app to reduce the harsh S sounds from my mike. I'll work on that second thing.

[@Smok3Knight]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le you did not come off harsh at all brother, just stating the facts clean and concise. Your insight is a blessing for the community.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@Smok3Knight Kind words, Thank you. My hand is starting to hurt from all the replies today :p

[@zedek_]

Meh, a 50% drop in players on steam over the past 90 days is extremely normal. Happens to the overwhelming majority of games; even indisputably praised ones like Elden Ring & Helldivers. That said, as a new player myself who literally joined when the Steam launch occurred... yeah the onboarding was rough, haha. There was a huge aversion to get over; getting murdered in complete ignorance. This is partly because in just diving into the game, I had no point of reference for what I was losing in dying... but also because it's not FUN to get murdered in complete ignorance! I didn't know: - If my settings were configured to my liking - How the freaking buttons worked - How to chain abilities together effectively (I always play druid in any/every game that I can) - How weapons worked i.e. learning their animations - The squire was not intuitive - Gear brackets were not intuitive Long story short; I just really wanted a small single-player playground to learn and practice the most basic mechanics without getting my teeth kicked in by other players. Ultimately I was able to recognize that it didn't matter if I died, and it was just my ego having this aversion... but a game shouldn't force an introspective epiphany in order to allow me to play it lol.

[@shu3684]

helldivers and elden ring are not pvp games, you cant just compare it like that lol

[@zedek_]

@@shu3684 Your claim/protest isn't exactly true in the case of Elden Ring... and I'm not convinced it's relevant in the case of something like Helldivers; as it's more important for the game to have a replayable online component for the sake of comparison... you have to demonstrate that online multiplayer games like Helldivers and PUBG/Tarkov behaved differently from one another in the first place... good luck with that. But more importantly, my comment is not limited to those two specific callouts anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@ThirdEye-AWAKEN]

I spent a few hours going through steam charts.. most games drop 50-80% of player based within first 3 months. Most gamers just binge on a game for a few months then go back to their classics. Its way too simple to look at a steam chart numbers to down and apply all your grievances to it. Dark and darker is here to stay

[@nomadicwolf6132]

My Druid brother… 🥲 I know exactly what you mean. Love Druid, but there's A LOT of friction between "I wanna try druid" & "I can competently play this class in any environment." You have to be hyper aware of: - maps, your position in them, & how you can escape / reposition in different modules - forms & how much space you need to transform - stats & gear - other classes, what they can do to you, & how you match up against them It is a struggle. 😭

[@zedek_]

@@nomadicwolf6132 Yeah man, but it's a good time! I've actually started to be able to kill people, rather than my first PVP attempt of: running into a Fighter, failing to transform because of ice rocks, but also not realizing that the transformation failed, and dying horribly hahaha We'll get there! Just slow and steady, and have fun right?

[@TohGahr]

they havent even updated the test server since before they added the skeleton merchant in the main server.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Great comment, no notes. Nothing to add. No reason for those servers to be online sucking down power.

[@TohGahr]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le yes i know, i am just hear to complain because i mainly use it for practicing inferno bosses and wyvern. they had recently opened it to everyone and a lot of people dont know that.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Good point, but do you want me to help get the word out ? You'll loose all that alone time to practice bosses. JK. I've found people on the test server in the past to be pretty chill.

[@TheCgio5]

Koopa, thank you for this video. You have pointed out many things that absolutely need to be said but most content creators don’t have the industry knowledge to express. Most notably, it feels bad right now to be an iron mace PAYING customer. Their attempt to put the Felidian skin behind a pay wall even for the paid users of the game rubbed a ton of their community the wrong way. This was always my fear when the game went free to play on steam. Having been an iron mace customer since early access release at this point, I knew that most of what they do lacks long term planning and that lack of longterm vision would carry over into how they integrated a f2p audience in a game that was once exclusively buy to play. I knew that we were going to get stupid gameplay changes like gear being allowed back into normals, high roller ante’s, etc. to curate a f2p experience that didn’t feel too barebones but also left them wanting to purchase the full game. And finally, I knew that eventually they were going to want to monetize the f2p crowd who weren’t buying the full game somehow and the buy to play players were going to get stuck with their attempts to do so. The Felidian skin is exactly that, their attempt to monetize the f2p audience but the ones of us who bought the game had to deal with it as well. I’m also very happy you have pointed out how low effort and poorly implemented both arena and the religion system are. We were told for months and months that content was being delayed because so much work went into arena but having played it, there is no way that’s the case. The fact that there are no custom maps for the mode and no meaningful integration of it into the main game like an arena exclusive trader or rewards leads me to believe this was hastily thrown together. Likewise, the religion system was hyped up to be this new really cool mechanic that changed how players interact with one another in the dungeon. Instead, it may as well not even exist because of how simplistic it’s interaction is and how shitty the buffs are. This wipe has been a massive let down and has shown no signs of improving. 1 balance patch in 3 weeks of the wipe that had most of its changes reverted the following day. No content and most of the new content like arena has tons of bugs that ruin the experience anyways. Some really headscratching decisions like expressman not having any sort of grace period if you are the last person going down a level. All of it has left a sour taste in my mouth and I’ll probably sit out the rest of the wipe unless changes get made.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the kind words. It's dangerous to attribute to malice, what could more easily be explained away as inexperience. They really designed themselves into a corner in giving away the best version of their game, as part of the FTP offering, yet giving them no way to 'progress' through gear. They solved it with a quick stop gap solution, remove the gear embargo for normals, which was easier than explaining to angry customers in steam reviews that progression in this game has little to do gear and is more about leveling up the player with good in-game knowledge. I made this video because I share your long range outlook. We've seen no evidence that process and decision making have improved. I see no improvement in velocity. We keep getting half baked solutions to complex problems with zero testing, zero discussion and often sub-standard communication. Find me one person who thinks it fun to click, Yes, take from stash. on. every. expressman. withdraw, and I will eat my hat bill first, without sauce. Thanks again for the detailed comment.

[@TheCgio5]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le no problem man, we’ve shared a couple of detailed discussions in the comments on your videos and I always appreciate the interaction. It’s fascinating to watch a company step on a metaphorical rake hitting themselves in the face over and over again when 99% of their players could have told them the rake was there from miles away. I’m of the opinion that the free to play release was a short term bandaid thrown out in a panic because the number of players at the end of that wipe was so abysmal sitting under 5k often around 3k. I think this decision to go f2p is going to haunt the games development for the rest of its lifespan because any decision or addition to the game will need to consider how it will help convert free players into paying players. Whether that’s through skins that offer in game statistical advantages, changes to core functions of the game like gear in normals/high roller gear score minimums or antes or battle passes that will offer reward tokens, gold, or gear. The latter of which I have no doubt is coming at some point. I don’t think it’s malice driving these decisions but a terminal pattern of poorly thought out decisions and a lack of clear direction.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@TheCgio5 I see your point, terminal short term thinking. I laughed at the rake comment. An apt metaphor for sure.

[@Kreeshawn]

Anecdotally, working on "non core features," namely arena, is what brought me back to the game. I'm curious if you have examples of game development who behave the way you want IronMace to behave?

[@TheCgio5]

Tarkov didn’t start adding non-core features like their arena mode until this year. The game has been available for purchase since 2016.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the comment. Interesting perspective. You are the first one to say they got brought back into the game by the arena test. How are you liking it ? Is it making you eager to play the other parts of the game more or are you just popping in for the weekend tests. At it's core, I'm asking them to finish what they start before starting something new. I don't think this request is extraordinary. If they are starved for resources then they need to prioritize those resources to area's of the project which satisfy the needs of the largest cross section of customers. That it brought you back to the game is fantastic. The governing question to my mind is, how many players left DaD due to it's spectacularly bad new player experience as compared to the likely smaller number of players who picked up the game ( or came back ) for the arena mode ? If the resources used to create the arena system were invested instead, into the new player experience, would the playing population be 10 or 20 or 30 % higher today ? I don't know. but the opportunity cost on the experiment are real and ( I fear ) quite costly.

[@Kreeshawn]

​@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Arena mode is very fun for being the initial version, fun enough to keep me playing. It definitely does make me want to learn the other maps and get better at PvE so that I can get better gear for PvP. The mechanic of not losing the gear that you have self-found was the biggest reason I wanted to play it, and I think it's been great.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@Kreeshawn This is really good feedback. Thanks for taking the time to reply. I hope you continue to have a blast with it.

[@JWL123]

Played since PT3, fix the rubberbanding and I’d be happy for a few months while they work on more content

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm shocked by how many folks say they see Much more of it, and none of it. I'm back to getting one bad rubber banding per match, which is far from unplayable but still grating. Other folks here are saying it happens soo much it's unplayable while others say it's silky smooth no issues.

[@JWL123]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le yeah idk what has been up but the past month for me has been pretty rough. I have a 900MBPS download speed and get 10-20 ping in every game I play.. lately in DaD it has been MULTIPLE times per game where it feels like I’m just running in place

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@JWL123 Ick. Pretty much everyone agrees that it was smooth sailing after the steam release, performance wise. I hope they get on top of it ASAP, whatever is causing it.

[@DoinMyBest4Ever]

I shared it but im still liking the video. You cant stop me

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for sharing, and for your disobedience I guess :). It's a free country after all.

[@mindtap100]

Game is Hella fun right now imo. The last patch was really good. 👌

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Agreed. And at a minimum they've addressed the usability issues with the Expressman. Now it's time to take action on new player experience and customer retention.

[@saint_snow]

IM is at the tail end of their ongoing lawsuit with Nexon and it directly relates to their lead game dev SDF. This is just the reality of dealing with a game with it's company jeapordized by a legal battle. Expect this until at least after October.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I've been here since the beginning. I'm well aware, just wholly unsympathetic. They have had literally years to create compensating controls and processes to allow work to continue in the absences of these key defendants and crucial team members. They have not. I am extremely sympathetic to the individuals, but it's just plain poor leadership when a few executive's legal issues can disrupt the overall operation of the project. To put it another way, Even if Nexxon lose this case, they still get to walk away knowing that they have significantly disrupted the operations at Iron Mace for a long time to come.

[@TheGriff130]

damn son he went for the heart on this one nice work imagine if they cared and listend to this guy. Hire him

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm certainly speaking from the heart. I've been told over and over that I'm being unreasonably harsh. I feel like I'm being direct. But It's a wonderful world where we can all disagree, peacefully.

[@TheGriff130]

@WrathofKoopa-fs8le no man your right what they could be doing and what they are doing is so out of line that we need them to understand that we love the game and all we want is to see it succeed and it's frustrating to watch fumble after fumble. Here's to hoping it improves 🍻

[@lookingforsmalldads7588]

Just like the last video you did on their development issues, this one was spot on. At this point almost everyone I know that plays this game both casually and no-lifing it has given up. I only hop on myself for Arena, and this latest update somehow found a way to make it worse while not fixing any of the issues. Just like with base game, they find a way to cause issues that were entirely avoidable in the first place through unnecessary additions and choices , and double down instead of reverting it. They don't use the goddamn test server, ignore glaring issues with balance while micromanaging non-issues, and worst of all: ignore the main issue we all have. The game is solved. Everyone left playing with more than a few hours knows how to fight bosses, optimal routes, optimal builds, etc. Games are predictable and over before they start. Unless we get something like a wandering map-wide boss, randomized map layouts with fixed configurations to simplify it (similar to Binding of Isaac), or they somehow ramp up development and churn out hella content soon, I'm afraid the downward trend will be irreversible (if it isn't already. Not that 10-20k players is nothing, but even after the popularity and hype waned it was sitting comfortably around 50k for so long, now it's so barren all I see are the same people every match over and over.) Great video. Almost wish they'd hire you to sort their shit out.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the kind comment ! A large part of my frustrations at this point is simply this, " Why have the outward investments in additional team / development resources not been able to meaningfully increase the rate of content delivery ? " My concern is that the underlying processes they are working under have not changed at all, not scaled up nor reviled any potential efficiency gains. Add that to the fact that they still have no Product function and no community management, public relations or anything approaching a healthy communication cadence with their customers. Several comments in this video and others have said, and I paraphrase " don't focus on daily_active_players, it's not productive at this point in early access ". To which I strongly disagree. As I cover in this discussion, I think they should have a team on this problem full time, understanding why customers walk away from your game and AT LEAST writing those reasons down. At another time and place those reasons can be reviewed and distilled into technical / corrective actions that can be folded into development roadmaps and prioritized against new feature development. Wait, I just described the Product function, I repeat myself. Can you summarize why your gang walked away from the game ?

[@lookingforsmalldads7588]

​@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le People who say to "not focus on daily active players" are deluding themselves and ignoring the reality of the current state of the industry. Player count and appearances for multiplayer games is everything, as annoying as it is. The moment a game is on the downtrend, besides when initial hype dies down, it is incredibly hard for the developers to pull out. Too many games I've loved fell to this but none were nearly as big both in terms of player count nor amount of players lost as DND is, and those other games had much stronger development teams and processes than DND appears to. Every time an update drops with baffling changes or additions it makes me wonder if the devs are just winging it, and with the lack of use of the PTR and lack of communication, it almost feels as if that is the case. It's not that the developers don't understand their own game, it just feels like they don't understand why PLAYERS of their game play. I feel like you touched on the topics of playercount being important and my point about their development as well in your previous video but people still seem to think a dwindling playerbase and idle/ineffective development is excusable regardless of circumstances and its worrying as a fan and should be for a developer. As for why everyone I played with walk away, each group I played with had their different reasons. I had 3 different squads, one comprised of 4 different people besides myself who were between complete timmies and mechanically competent but not great at game sense and the more meta/learned aspects meaning we stuck to low GS/base gear lobbies, one 3 man squad that was decently skilled but never engaged with the deeper and more competitive aspects of the game (super high gear high roller, artifact hunting, constant bossing) where we mostly just messed around with mid tier kits and focused on PVPing for fun (before Arena was anywhere close to released), and another that did engage totally, high gear high skill fights, killing the harder bosses, even getting a few artifacts, all of it. The low skill players left because they didn't want to invest the time to learn such a punishing game by trial and error even after teaching them as much as I could, and despite DND being relatively simple compared to other competitive games, especially at low level, the sheer amount of stuff it does not tell you as a new player is frustrating, especially for less "familiar" players (those that don't spend all their time playing games, and aren't well versed in game concepts that would otherwise be obvious to someone that does). The mid tier people just grew tired of the game loop, spawn rushing for the PVP fights just to win and not care about the loot because they were already wearing optimal

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@lookingforsmalldads7588 Wow. Thanks for all this. I'm looking for perspective and this is pure gold. I can't thank you enough for this detailed reply.

[@Johnny31323]

Here's what i think causes rubberbanding. It could be that, the Game with it's PvE Mobs, has a path finding ( line to destination ) perfomance problem. The game has allot of Mobs, once they're all killed and server is free of them like in some PvP lobbies, you're almost never going to rubberband or lag. This makes sense, but also even if it does, this could be possibly optimized really good to the point of never rubberbanding outside of server issues not having anything to do with the game but internet issues. Also, i think i like the game so far, i've had some things to say about it so far, but the devs that are left keep trying to balance it as they can. Also, just like you said, i think they should hire more developers. This would be a great idea since this game is a Live Action game, being updated constanly with changes everytime it's needed. Edit: I'm not quite sure what's happening with their dev team currently or the main dev, as far as i understood he's in jail because of copying code that is company property and making it as source code on github which he then used to make Dark and darker. Maybe im wrong im unsure, but this definitely is deserved.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the detailed comment. A few things I'll add. They have hired a bunch of folks, but if your process is bad, putting more resources into that process yields poor results. What they need to be working on is good process. That will scale up the resources they have already invested in. I don't have a law degree, and I certainty don't understand the Korean legal system. SDF is accused of intellectual property theft, from my laymen's point of view, the case seems flimsy and FEELS like sour grapes from Nexxon, but I don't have the real details nor the context. That being said, it's a much more serious thing in Korea. Far more criminal than civil.

[@dylanwysocki4406]

I didn’t realize so many had stopped playing in the last 90 days. That’s crazy. I have also felt that religions and arena were silly wastes of development time. Feels like the steam is running out on this game. Hopefully not.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

It's pretty drastic. We are hovering around 18 K daily active players since the loot patch, but that's down from 30 K at the start of wipe, as compared to 50 K at the start of last. I'd be making it a major point of focus for the team, if I were sitting in the meetings.

[@ВиталийМартыненко-е7й]

From the first playtest the game is falling further and further into the abyss, although it has huge potential, but the developers seem to not care about it🤕

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Huge potential indeed. Like I said, they are distracted by their legal problems. It's understandable, to a point.

[@ВиталийМартыненко-е7й]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Yes. As you said in the video, if the developer had listened to the community and communicated with them, there would have been no complaints. Everyone was against multiclass. They added it anyway. Arena and Religions turned out disgusting. As usual, no one listens to the community, although many people including me have many interesting solutions.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the encouragements. Please don't get me started on Multiclassing.

[@danielchristensen5436]

I loved your point about banning cheaters and IM still not addressing legit players getting false banned (even if for a week). I was false banned a couple months ago and wasn't reactivated until a week had gone by. No explanation for why I was banned and support was 0 help. An IM dev even asked the recently false-banned people like me for remote PC access to make sure we weren't running cheat programs. My ban was completely false and I didn't even know I was unbanned until I randomly tried to log in and was able to get in. Imagine how many new people catch a false ban and then just decide to drop the game altogether? My activity in the game has been super minimal since. I don't know if I'll ever be "into" the game like I was before. Such a shame

[@Wulfrim]

I'm one of the missing players, but don't worry I just forgot to tell sdf I was leaving so he probably put out a missing person report since he was worried. Unfortunately, although I love many of the ideas behind Dark and Darker, from the standpoint of a game designer and a competitive player there are just too many problems for me to continue putting up with. If Ironmace wants their game to be more competitive and PvP focused then the current combat system is lacking, since there's just not enough consistency for skill expression opportunities. Much of the combat is designed around melee-centrism, but with the way hitslow and ranged options are balanced (at least last time I played, correct me if I'm wrong) the punishment for attempting melee combat outside of quick finishing blows or all-ins with team members fully supporting you simply does not incentivize that kind of gameplay. Furthermore, there are very few abilities in the game that alleviate this issue, such as reliable disengage abilities, and the few abilities that meet these criteria are often given to ranged-focus classes such as ranger's backstep, wizard's invisibility, or warlock's phantomize. Meanwhile, engaging in melee with targets that are anything more than within one-shot range guarantees a sacrifice of precious hp which makes team fights harder to sustain and third party fights more difficult to avoid. The best strategy in the game (again, last time I played) was to rely on ranged options, preferably picking a class that excels at range, and force stalemates by running away and closing doors behind oneself to slow down pursuers. In a game so heavily inspired by D&D and fantasy style combat and adventure, where generally a well rounded team of melee, ranged, and magic specialists should be able to work around each other, you know you have an issue when the factors that determine what builds do the best comes down almost entirely to sustained range damage, move speed, and door breaching capabilities. On the other hand, if they want their game to be more focused on adventure, progression, and PvE, then they definitely need to be doing ALOT more than what they currently have, and as you said in your video they need to eliminate distraction content from their roadmap. The arena and religion system feel like optional minigames that are easily forgettable, such as the stratagem minigame in Helldivers 2 that's there simply to kill time between stretches of actual gameplay. There needs to be a tavern room with Tarkov-esque hideout progression, a revamped levelling system, or many other possible features that actually compliment the existing gameplay loop, on top of the absolute largest necessity of adding maps, enemies, bosses, equipment, loot, and classes to the game. Instead of DaD I went back to Overwatch 2 for a little bit, and even though it has plenty of its own problems I was able to enjoy it more from a competitive player's perspective. Luckily I wasn't stuck there long, since I've been playing and absolutely loving Deadlock recently. Right there's a game that knows what it is, what makes it good, what's important to keep it healthy, and how to further cultivate the ideas that make it unique from its predecessors. And if someone is looking for that PvE, fantasy adventure experience, I hate to say it but I don't think there's an option on the market right now that includes PvP, so DaD just may not be it. That being said, there's tons of co-op games out there, and if you're feeling frustrated with DaD I would highly recommend trying other games and occasionally checking back to see if IM manages to cook up some good changes while you're gone

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Sorry to see you go, but glad I got a chance to know you in these discussions. Let me know when your next game drops, I'd love to see what you are working on.

[@poisonddogpoisonddog6212]

4:27 dude I was roasting sdf that he locks himself in a closet and types the patche notes out and slides the paper under the door for the team to push out without play testing 🤦

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

The playtesting sting hits the hardest. We are the play testers, the usability testers and in some cases the unit testers. Someone please prove me wrong. My darkest take on Iron Mace's Critical-Man problem is that large sections of the code base are only able to be worked on by a single guy ( SDF ) due to poor documentation or code cleanliness. A far more treacherous problem than a single employee's cowardice.

[@Pace_Of_Snell]

A tutorial may help keep players in. Players may not seek help from others.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Just a room they can wander into with a target dummy, their gear and build would be enough of a tutorial. A place they can test the build with zero chance of losing their set.

[@nathanscarlett4772]

I just found out that IM has also removed the ability to link your BlackSmith account to Steam. Huge fail. Why would you ever remove that?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Weird right. It had something to do with the backend API's on steam and what they wanted to do with monetization. It was all rather cryptic, but it sounded like they encountered some technical complication on the back end and the fastest work-around was to turn off account migration from BlackSmith. A recent example of where better communication would have been helpful.

[@RoyCollins-n8k]

They moving in the right direction

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Clearly, as evidenced by an additional loss of 30 % of the player base since the time of this videos publication.

[@RoyCollins-n8k]

Stick to Mario

[@RoyCollins-n8k]

This game is amazing and they even adding it to more platforms

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@RoyCollins-n8k And you believe that adding it to more platforms is indicative of the right creative direction ? I would view such a move as a cynical cash grab from a team that is largely out of time and out of ideas.

[@deajm3332]

I agree with everything you said, the game takes one step forward and two steps back. Quests are boring and uninteresting, monsters are boring. As if they were put there to fill the space. HR with the new gear is terrible, instead of working on gear that would affect pve itself more, they literally do the opposite and thus create problems for themselves with the balancing of the whole game (just make only gear tear for monsters, and for pvp no tier. Game will be easier for them to balance and a lot more fun and probably would solve a lot of problems with rmt and gear score)

[@Bobo-i8k]

Good idea as far as pvp and pve are concerned, but I doubt it will be implemented

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Great comment. Monsters in Dark and Darker are speed bumps, which slow our progress across the map in our search for our next pvp fight. A low hazard speed bump at that. I don't see why the game envision couldn't exist inside this one in future. Iron Mace seems committed to seeing Dark and Darker's potential through a very narrow lens, of hardcore pvp only. If you were to post this idea on reddit you'd like get some comments about getting gud or larp elsewhere. I don't understand why two people can't enjoy the same toy in different ways, without it threating their respective world views. Thanks, 2024.

[@DudeSoWin]

I don't play this genre for Bosses or Arena. I only ever ran Crypts because as the name implies Darker and Darker.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

IF you don't mind me asking, what is your favorite part of the game ?

[@DunnionRingsDaD]

If the game dies a horrible death, atleast we'll know they dont watch these videos koopa. Keep making them!

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for watching, and I salute your ability to find the silver lining !

[@breal84]

Druids, everywhere druids, more druids. Look over there it's 4 more druids. Gee I wonder why there are so many druids. .......

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

And what will those druid mains do, if druids should get nerfed ? will they fade away into the unmeasured masses of players leaving the game ?

[@lawfulLlama]

I think Arena is a great addition that made me excited to play the game again. I really like the self-found mechanic for gear, as it gives a solid reason to play High Roller-you can get valuable drops there that are actually useful in Arena. In contrast, in normal mode, most of the gear you get from killing the 600 gearscore fighter is just going straight to the marketplace. That said, even though Arena is just in technical testing, it currently feels a bit unrewarding. There's no real incentive to play since you don’t get anything substantial from it, yet you still have to buy healing items-and risk losing your gear to bugs. This half-baked release is making people lose faith. It’s hard to get excited about a ranked mode that doesn’t have actual ranks yet. However, Arena does have potential. Introducing an MMR system that ignores gear would give motivation to grind High Roller for loot while keeping the self-found mechanic meaningful. This could be a great way to balance competitive play and longer term gear progression. TL;DR: Arena is fun, but why release an alpha test with so little to offer?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I would be less critical of the arena release if the communication around it was better. What they are testing, what they envision the end state to be. How they are planning to get there. I love Self Found gearing in Dark and Darker. I'm a huge fan. I was pleasantly surprised when they added it as a foundational piece of the arena system, largely due to my hope that it would be applied into other game modes. Agreed about half baked. I think the arena was the perfect example of a new system which should have been launched to the test server to 1. Flush out technical specifics 2. Engage the community in a bi-directional design conversation 3. Define where it fits into the product overall. But if you take a look at the corpse of this dead horse, communication is not something Iron Mace does well. I'm getting a lot of pushback over my word choice in describing the arena system as a waste of resources. As to your question about why release it in this pre-alpha state ? They've been working on it for months and they have nothing else to show for that time. They feel an urgency to release SOMETHING so they push out half baked arenas so they have something to point at.

[@lawfulLlama]

​@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le I completely agree-arena feels like a waste of resources in its current state. That’s the core issue with Ironmace right now. They keep rolling out new ideas and systems that just don’t feel finished. Take the expressman for example: he’s a cool concept, but the implementation is so rough that it feels like we're beta testing live. The constant item dragging and clunky post-raid process makes it even more frustrating. I don't want to say I'm losing hope, but it’s starting to feel that way. I miss the old Dark and Darker playtest days, when they'd stay quiet for two months and then drop a new test build with a ton of new perks, the ruins, and new classes. We've essentially been playing the same game for a year now-except for the druid, which has been my personal nightmare. Realizing how i reacted to the changes to Curse of Pain were the last straw for me. At first, I was excited because the warlock felt different, and it felt new content had dropped. But after two matches, I realized that balance changes aren’t the same as new content. It’s crazy that I got hyped over such a minor tweak just because it felt fresh, since everything else is so stale. Lmao.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@lawfulLlama Balance is NOT content. It's maintenance. This video is, in part, about finding hope and not letting go of the idea that DaD can be great. It's hard.

[@Aycr1th]

Shouting into the void, indeed. How does this help?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Even if this video provokes no discourse, nor consideration, I can sleep well knowing that I did something in the face of obvious, solvable problems. I love this game and I want it to succeed. My options are limited to speaking up or doing nothing. So I'm with Burke on this one, where he said, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”

[@Aycr1th]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le "I may be rancid butter but I'm on your side of the bread."

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@Aycr1th Doing hateful things for which I'm loved, and loving things for which I'm hated. Deep cut there.

[@knightofwhale2834]

I'm personally just playing other games. I'm really happy ruins is back and the arena events and religion systems have potential to be fun additions. I only really have a few friends interested in playing the game and since we're all tied up playing other games dark n darker gets a break this wipe. There's a new wow expansion Space marine 2 Helldivers has a big new balancing update And probably more stuff pulling people away. I still love the game.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Always glad to see your name pop up. How are the changes to HD2 ? I was excited to see they were going to stop 'balancing their game till it was unfun' but I have not tried it yet ? Space marine two looks outstanding. I was waiting for the first sale on steam, but I might move that timeline up. A bunch of commenters on this video think I need a break :)

[@knightofwhale2834]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le In a world where fully coop campaign missions are a rarity, Space marine 2 is a breath of fresh air. The HD2 changes are good, though I never really was bothered by the nerfs to the weapons and strats that people seemed to complain about. That being said the changes to weapon damage, armour penetration, enemy durability, and automaton missile spam all feel like good steps in the right directions. I never really understood the hate the devs got. Regardless of the issues, the game still offered a unique experience that I still found was challenging and fun. I guess that's why I still love Dark n Darker despite it's flaws.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Sounds like you have a really healthy perspective here. I should likely try and emulate it.

[@bearoyay]

Ive been addicted to this game since playtest 2 but finally quit a few months ago. I will list my core reasons. 1) I just can no longer deal with the approach to balance. Classes going from completely game breaking broken to useless in a single patch, then back the next one, then back again. Video game balance is very hard, but ironmace just cant seem to find a formula that works. 2) The pve is boring once you start to figure it out. The npcs are very basic and only difficult because of a lack of game knowledge at the start. Essentially everything is either spaced, kited, or cheesed. Bosses are incredibly cheap health sponges that rely on you to master a fight to win without taking a hit, which in an extract looter game feels very tedious. 3) Content is extremely low. The pvp is often shafted by the poor balance updates, wich leaves the rest of the game. The lack of fleshing out classes, new classes, new weapon mechanics, monsters, anything - there is basically nothing. We waited eons to get the druid update, then Iron mace cant figure out its balance and guts the class shortly after. 4) The biggest issue is direction. The game seems to have no idea what it wants to be. Combat has become a kiting range meta, a fraction of the player base engages with the new bosses added, yet they are given so much importance. Quests rely on going into dungeons and doing basic things that could take hours depending on if you get the right module and survive. The warlock bounces between being an op glass cannon melee assasin to an extremely abusable ranged character that kites forever. Certain classes are never touched even though no one or everyone plays them. Dont get me started on the ranked mode and ap, a nothingburger grind against mobs sped up to hyperspeeds to increase difficulty. Im starting to feel like they have lost the plot, lost their vision. The lawsuit sucks for sure, and maybe its true that no one else can lead and they Soley rely on sdf to tell them what to do. Overall, at this state, the game as a whole entirely does not respect your time and effort put in whatsoever.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for this detailed comment. I appreciate the time you took putting it down. I'm compiling the data points and putting a survey in the field to try and shore up more perspective but I 100 % agree that I don't feel like the game respects my time.

[@ike804]

Almost like the game isnt that fun and doesnt respect your time as a player at all.

[@Salimas167]

If u can't consistently survive that's how extraction games can feel

[@DudeSoWin]

Those birds on ruins map have got to go. And these penalties on every single perk. Every time I discover a path anywhere in a system, the game gets hit by these little ninja editors rearranging torches, sticking traps up my ass, and just being a nuisance. Especially that one spawn on the second Frost Mountain map, its certain death but thankfully they reverted that change which allowed you to game over before even loading in.

[@theseusandaphaea]

@@Salimas167 Fair point. Ironmace definitely does other things to waste your time such as terrible UI choices in some places + lack of lobby/inventory features this far into development.

[@Salimas167]

​@@theseusandaphaea maybe but who cares about that stuff really that much when the game is fun thats all i really care about

[@oidotsuc5165]

I left cuz of movement meta in solo and duos Trios is fun but when the other 2 modes rely on who can move faster is just straight boring

[@griffind113]

I agree with everything said in this video as usual. I have slowly been noticing I have felt less and less inclined to log onto dark and darker as seasons have progressed. I have been playing since the first playtest ever and this season I maybe have 10 hours at most. I just dont see a point when every other day there is a new update making a different class broken beyond any of the other classes. I understand balancing of a game can be hard but some of these changes they implement just feel like they dont even listen to the community nor play the game. My lack of wanting to play the game has gotten so bad I have gone back to playing singleplayer minecraft which I havent played in years as I see no point to play a game who doesnt appear to care about the community. Another thing I dont agree with the changes of which might be controversial is the questing system I absolutely hate it, does nothing for the game but incentive's avoiding pvp at all costs to get out with the required items. And the only way to be able to make good amounts of coins to buy things for highroller kits to be able to compete is either crafting or fully clearing a lobby and doing bosses. These are just my thoughts, I dont really see myself coming back to darker for a long time unless something is changed related to the content they provide.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Great comment, thanks. So you would stack rank the reasons you've turned away from the game is 1. Erratic balance changes. 2. Community Communication / Testing 3. Questing 4. Marketplace reliance ? This is all great feedback. I wish we had somewhere to insert this kind of feedback about the product where it could be digested.

[@griffind113]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Exactly! I think if they gave us a place to interact or give suggestions to what people are feeling it would atleast show they care. For the 4th point you made in your comment I believe that the marketplace was a great addition but I dont think I should have to dump 100s of hours a wipe into questing simply to be able to keep up with the playerbase. I simply dont have the time to get on every day and grind out quests on a pvevp. I could play lowroller sub 25 gs but then it doesnt feel rewarding and if im doing that I should just go play a game where I can see some reward to what im doing.

[@minkoil00]

I hope they figure it out because do really like this game I would hate to have to play a clone

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

That's the head space I've been in for a while.

[@CrypticCrisp]

I've been in back to back empty lobbies some days, not the best

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Sorry to hear it. Which bracket / region ?

[@CrypticCrisp]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Europe server mate, its absolutely a ghost town 80% of games

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@CrypticCrisp Ick. First I've heard of it, thanks and I'm very sorry to hear it.

[@M4XIMU]

Let them cook lil bro; Roll with the punches or just tap out. We all appreciate the insight though.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Glad you enjoyed it ! Sorry, I have a very hard time tapping out on things.

[@jimz1024]

Player count always jumps and falls on release of new season on any game, also theyre currently awaiting verdict on lawsuit, its a small dev team and i for one support them and their vision, you font have to support them, but also dont need to break down all these small subjecfive details whilst comparing to standards triple A studios have said you should expect, even though they dont deliver

[@terrellsdoomed]

if you think the trend of player activity almost anywhere in ironmace's lifecycle is "healthy", or "normal", you can't be saved. pointing out these flaws is what makes a better game. look at helldivers. game died off for the most part, they do an update listening to the community, fixing longstanding issues, and they have a resurgence of players.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

This video IS me supporting them. I'm invested in the outcome, I love their game and want them to succeed. If you look through my channel, I'm doing the only thing I can to help them. Point them toward solutions. 1. Player count - Average daily players is the central metric of any live service pvp game. It sets the baseline for their cost structure and revenue projections going forward, based on conversation rates for that title in their microtransactions and full game sales. I can accept a dip in these numbers for any number of factors, but 50 % is not a dip to blithely dismiss. It needs investigation and corrective action. Put resources on understanding where these players went and why they left. Now. 2. How am I being subjective ? I'm speaking with data, objectively. 3. I'm holding them to very easy standards. That they communicate to us with respect commiserate with our time investments and that they test their builds before inflicting brokenness on their customers. If you think this is a high bar, we have to agree to disagree. Oh, also, that their game which requires precision in aiming and movement not stutter like mad to the point of being non-performant. I know you feel like I'm being unreasonable in attacking them. That's a framing problem. I'm a friend that's trying to help them step back from a long fall.

[@cristofersiech4692]

great video and here is a tip for your vids, research de-esser for removing those harsh S-sounds that can happen when recording audio : ]

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Good advice, it bothers me as well. Clearly not enough to fix it yet, but still. Thanks !

[@jon131]

The new user experience is awful. Partly due to game design, but the players themselves are the main issue. I shouldn't be dead before I even finish loading into the game. I shouldn't be seeing a bear one tapping me 12 seconds into the match. If you give players the means to be toxic, they will always be toxic.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I was shocked when, in the latest interview Terry gave, he didn't discuss the new player experience at all. Yes, they did add the tome of knowledge, but it's a drop of water in the ocean of what needs to happen. I was further shocked when season 4 started, and we had no real steps in this direction. To the point I raised in the video, when you have this level of bounce off, promotions and marketing is the last thing you should be thinking of.

[@terrellsdoomed]

The thing is, they've slacked so much, there's almost too many things they need to work on, but can't seem to get it done. I'd say balance is probably priority #1, or at least one of the most likely reasons people quit. Aside from that, not being able to select the map you want is just time people are wasting on the game, we should have map pick (most people's argument against that was that the playerbase couldn't support it, but I can't help but feel as if player *had the choice* to pick how they wanted to play, maybe more would've stuck around)! So balance and wasting time buying gear/in menus/waiting for the map are definitely reasons. My personal third and last reason people probably quit is that there is no reward in this game. Hear me out. I queue into goblin caves HR. I open the first chest I see. I get a purple lute! That's fine. But why do I get that exact same garbage for killing a 7,000 HP Ice Dragon? I invested tens, if not hundreds of hours, and I have nothing to show for it. They DESPERATELY need to figure out the loot situation. I'm max luck on bard, and I'd be fortunate to even find a legendary bangle. Absolutely garbage.

[@terrellsdoomed]

I definitely agree with the confusing marketing strategies, or their fixation on the shop. They're wasting resources.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Great comment, thanks. I think balance is super important, but not the way we are doing it now. It feels counterproductive. As I've been saying for a long time, they need to be discussing the balancing operation in objective terms. They need to be PROPOSING changes within a format that says : 1. We think this class is a problem right now. 2. We'd like to address this by changing x,y,z parameter of this class. 3. We'll be closely examining the change in this metric to see if this fix is effective and 4. We'll be taking feedback around this change here .... It's amazing to me that most folks don't complain about map wait times as much as they used to, maybe everyone who disliked it has quit by now, but this drives me crazy. It illustrates soo clearly the disconnect between how Iron Mace wants the game to be played and how we actually play it. If my amigos and I are working on Crypt quests, we wait for crypts to come around. That might be 2 mins, it might be 7 mins. Either way we are waiting some amount of time. Map rotation is a solution which feels faster, but does nothing but make wait times universal. The argument that there is not enough players is terribly bad math. It's a longer wait for the smallest brackets in the least popular game modes on the lowest population maps. But instead of looking at why high GS trios don't play Ice caves, it's easier to average the WAIT TIME MISERY across the whole player base. Your last argument has really caught me off guard. You've framed that point in a more stark example then I've ever seen. It's a very good question about equality of outcomes, once which paints the idea of bossing in a very poor light. Let me think on that.

[@terrellsdoomed]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le I 100% agree with the balancing take, and I feel you and I both know, they USED to definitely approach balancing in a mindset more along those lines... explaining *why* they changed something, or at least their goals with the changes in general. Definitely a lot more of a disconnect now. For example, the recent warlock Curse of Pain rework. Old Ironmace would've been a lot more attentive to the situation after altering a class like that, but we had to wait weeks just for them to tweak irrelevant numbers. If they filtered their ideas through the community, I think they would've found that phantomize is probably the main issue currently. A side note, I also really appreciated your point about Graysun/SDF being MIA and that being an excuse for them. They had the blessing of hiring more staff, moving offices, and they're still suffering from low productivity when one or two people are missing? I really really love Ironmace and the idea of this game, but they are really disappointing me. I'm glad you also can see why map rotation is frustrating, ESPECIALLY in groups. If one person isn't back on time, you're back to waiting minutes to play the map you want. If some game modes are longer queue times, so be it. That just shows that those queues probably need some love (like trios Ice Caves, as you mentioned)! I did come off a bit harsh, but the mental fortitude it took to learn to melee dragon... to get nothing from it... is a VERY bad feeling. I will say bossing in general is fun though, and the feeling overall of learning it and getting better is great. But once you have it learned, you yearn for something for your sacrifice. Another comment suggested they don't value the player's time, and I couldn't think of a better example than bossing. I appreciate you bringing issues the game has to light! You are making the game better by providing this discourse. I only hope they can take the right advice.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@terrellsdoomed Taking the right advice is the hardest part. Thanks so much for your contribution to this discussion here. It's appreciated.

[@estudiogogo5903]

because the gear difference is so big that you can't just kill a legendary guy with just skill because the most skill this game has is just to DRAG, so the fun is suck out of the game, I always did reddit post to explain that this game needs a refresh on combat most spells, blocking is so unrefined and not working peacefully so they did BRACKETS because the gear diff was so big that they did a band aid

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I agree that it's a band-aid fix. This is precisely why I'm calling on their recent efforts a squandering of time and resources. If they could find a way to add more nuance and counter play to the basic mechanics it would be worth 100 sub-modules or game modes. One thing that DaD does well, is in the absence of a nuanced combat system, it promotes decision making and elevates that a level of importance we don't often see in other games. I'd be a huge fan of any changes which could do both.

[@amanoyuckitero6035]

Regarding the cheating problem, my point of view is that more people download cheats out of spite for the game and the content, for example when they die 15 times in a row to a damn druid lobby anyone would love to download something that would help them cook those druids...

[@Sytall]

These should then go and learn druid then. Otherwise bamnhamer comes into play😊

[@amanoyuckitero6035]

@@SytallIt's not just the druid thing, just a small example, the fact that RMT is a thing, cheater problem follows up not far from it, earn money>buy cheats>earn more all the while taking a shit on the legitimate players you get the dopamine+benefits

[@amanoyuckitero6035]

@@Sytall Honestly when I view it that way I'm starting to wonder why I'm playing legitimate myself, feels masochistic

[@JWL123]

@@amanoyuckitero6035trust me the cheats aren’t gonna make you any better big dog

[@amanoyuckitero6035]

@@JWL123 ofc not, hence I'm not doing it Holmes

[@VeigeAlice]

One of my problems was getting falsely booted out of the game due to some dumb abnormal detection thing. Never happened before during the last season, but as soon as this seasons' updates came out, it kept doing that off and on. Sometimes it would happen during a run, sometimes during lobby. I ain't played much since all that as it kinda a waste. There was a game I uninstalled, that wasn't one of the ones that people are aware of, and played a few games after that to find perhaps that the false detection may have ceased. Still ain't played in a while since I did that, but seems their shit is far too sensitive with other game's built-in software. I'll perhaps get more in to it later, but eh.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Yes. This is exactly the false positive behavior I was referencing in this discussion. I'm aware that Riot's anti-cheat was being flagged as cheats, but it's likely any kernel level application you are running. Lots of folks have been impacted by this, but I've only seen a rise in obvious cheating. So ( I 'm assuming you aren't cheating ) you've been turned off of the game while cheating continues. That's just one of the reasons why silence on this subject is unacceptable and why discussion of false-positives in detection are fundamentally part of the conversation. Otherwise we have no way to tell if the cure is worse than the disease.

[@VeigeAlice]

I'm not a bad player, but my success rate ain't good lol. I've heard others having same problems. They act a little too prideful with their software and feel it's perfect, from what I've kept hearing. I play druid. I spend most time trying to get quest stuff and just avoiding pvp (I totally like pvp/PvE) as it's choice if you wanna fight one another as I see it like this, we're all in the shit together, if you wanna attack or not, I get it. I also like to play in a squad sometimes and be a healer also, so I enjoy the class. But I've only won 3-4 fights myself, I mostly die lol. I like the game for what it wants to be, but I think they need to step back, assess what's there, let the classes be itself and from a good foundation, expand upon it and keep their hubris in check when it comes to their softwares etc. otherwise, it's fine. They just cannot seem to agree and just do trial and error.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@VeigeAlice Many people fault this overall lack of direction to a leadership issue.

[@Xzpswagger]

Issa indie game. If it wasnt something special nobody would whine about it, they just wouldn't play it. I'm more of a casual player admittedly but i like it just the way it is for the most part. It will probably get sold to Tencent and then we will see the commercial development everyone wants but we all know how that goes.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm super glad you are enjoying it. I too would rather see them close up shop then to sell to Tencent.

[@Isaax]

I'd rather see the game die a pathetic dog's death than be handed over to tencent

[@MereLiq]

Yep. 3 fucking hours of server down for patching and +2 hours of 'sorry something goes wrong'. Im sure that a big part of new members just never started the game because it was on maintenance. Sad that such a good game takes the wrong way

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I don't want to make it sound like change management is easy, but they are not great at it. I'm a little desensitized. In the wipe just before the steam release, SDF was taking the servers down every other day to 'fix' the thing they broke yesterday. No kidding, I think we had 3 emergency hotfixes in 72 hours with 6+ hours of downtime per patch.

[@oidotsuc5165]

I left cuz of movement meta I hate it when people just go full movement build to avoid dying is like i get in a lobby of people who just run it becomes boring

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I have not left, but I understand the feeling. The speed and the door-play. I'm rather bored of the door-play myself.

[@SailorIvo]

Oh yeah, at low gear scores, the naked min-maxed guy with an axe running at 1 mach, the efficiency god that is, vs. you, a caster that is unable to match him on melee, running for your life just to get outrun by him since he can break doors. Why don't we talk about the spawnrush'ers and druids as well that can engage/disengage whenever they want? and uhh... the bow spammers that act like this is a fps.... Ttk is too low to have a fun fight. Damage should be reduced overall, and there should be block or parry options for every weapon. No i do not like 2 tap deaths just because i miss-stepped a meter.

[@oidotsuc5165]

@@SailorIvo nah I play fighter and I'm talking about high gear score All u see in solo and duos high roller is just people stacking as much movements speed to be able to kite if they losing which removes the punishment of the game for being bad Solo and duos is full with bard,rogues warlocks And roundel dagger fighter They should remove movements speed bonus on boots so u can't stack it with additional movement speed and buff spell book penalty from 10- to 15- and for last remove roundel from fighter instead of nerfing the dagger

[@mrak8699]

Another day, another Koopa W

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for watching ! I can't seem to get more than one videos out every 10 days or so, but I catch your meaning.

[@mosese1172]

I’m not playing when I can’t play my class because it’s buffed or nerfed every other week, reading patch notes ever other week - feels like I’m reading updated knowledge bases for work. After work I want to play and have fun not educate myself and have to conform to the meta at the time. I

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

To which class are you referring ? Lock ? Rogue ? Wizard ? Dark and Darker requires of it's customer dozens of hours outside of the game. First to learn, then to be able to enjoy. Since we have nothing to go on, My conspiracy theory is that they go into balancing tail-spin mode when they don't have other content to introduce. They change something about a class, then a few days or a week later, they change it back. Ad nauseum. A lot of this could be solved with a little bit of transparency and communication. For example, " What is the criteria or metric you are using to guide you class balancing efforts ? ". Fairness is PVP games is critical and balance will be ongoing. I can accept that. But I'd like to see some DATA to support seemingly arbitrary balance changes. If Garen has a 70 % win-rate in top lane, that's a pretty good reason for Garen to get a change. That one data point provides context, direction and frames the conversation. We've never had that level of discussion nor transparency. Which is one of the many reasons the buff/nerf cycle in Dark and Darker is mysterious, abrupt and dissatisfying.

[@mosese1172]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le I started the game as a cleric because I sucked and could still help the team, eventually switched to wizard because I like wizards in any game I just find magic and casting fun but the wizard is always up or down in terms of patches (like most classes) then I started to play barb because I was tired of being relatively slow and squishy, but then they buffed it so it didn’t feel fun it felt like bullying or you get hate for running it because that’s what’s “in” at the time, then I eventually played every class to the point I can play any class and understand all the “sub classes” but I did it out of necessity either because the thing I had fun with got buffed just to get nerfed again just for it to get buffed again and this example I’m saying applies to all classes. I can’t even give you a specific example because it happens so often and has happened so long it would stress me out to go back and provide literal examples but it’s all there. I just want to play and have fun with what I find and have a chance but if you don’t min max your class, your gear, and your team (if you’re playing with a team), then you’re asking to get rolled on by some dude(s) running whatever the meta is and if you’re average at some point you get frustrated and become the thing you hate. A meta gamer. no personality or individualism or funny looking to the character or class you build it’s straight up running a streamers class, build, gear, strategy, and occasionally even their routes or pathing. I pick my class based off what my team mates are playing because if I don’t and/or they don’t, we’re about to run into the most ideal enemy comp to rob us of stuff they could care less about. People are gonna say yea but XYZ can run ____ class and kill ___ class/player, but that’s the minority, not the majority which is why I appreciated how you mentioned new player retention. The only people who stay are used to playing hardcore games, used to playing broken games, are addicted to the adrenaline, or literally have nothing better to do than run the most repeated set ups that everyone they watch perform with and stomp a new guy cuz git gud. Even tarkov and dayz are nicer to the newer people than we are on DND

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

The last paragraph where you are talking about the ones who remain playing are the hardcore veterans is really apt. Thanks for putting the effort into your reply and your initial comment.

[@firesupotree]

I feel bad, because I was practically begging you (and every DaD creator I can still bear to watch) for this video just a week or two ago. And holy Sprint did you deliver btw. But shortly after my rant in your comments of the last one, I realized something about myself: I have been arguing, discussing, and paragraphing about all this for over a year straight. Its been 13 months of being called a hater, doomer, and every slur in the book by my fellow line holders because I didn't ALWAYS show praises on IM, because I wanted to discuss the glaring issues too. I just had been a part of many dying gaming communities recently and didn't want to see them go down the same path. But Ironmace has told us who they are many times over by now, and we are the ones failing to believe them. I had to give up on this game and company for my sanity, because these next few months are gonna be hard to watch.. niche multiplayer games go out with a whimper, never a bang. I saw a comment on the subreddit this morning akin to "If Nexon got the game, it would have battlepasses and microtransactions!" two things that are literally in the game now. It struck me with a familiar feeling, when certain terminally online pundits would point to mile-long homeless communities or ridiculous food prices in modern day corporate america and say "See what would happen under communism!" Much respect to you for making this video, even if it gets you blackballed. And to all those who choose to carry the torch into that darkness going forward... May you find some closure like I have.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Sorry to see you go, but I'm glad I was able to put a smile on your face as you went. Don't feel bad, I only spoke from the heart and the truth about this game as I see it. I think distance is the right solution when you are in a negative relationship, but I'm not quite at the threshold I need to gain that same perspective myself. I subscribe to an old fashioned idea that positive change can be achieved with words, collective action and reasoned discourse. Call me crazy. Until next time, may the road rise up to meet you.

[@Skeleyawn]

Yeah…why not use the test server for the bs more data needed. Pretty valid on all your points.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks. If I could close my eye and get one wish for iron mace, it's they would be forced to release all production changes to test 48 hour before it goes to production. It's such a simple thing, it would cost them so little time, but save them soo much in credibility and public sentiment.

[@itsalwaysswordfish6433]

A change that kind of damaged my enjoyment of the game was allowing gear into norms. Now playing highroller feels almost pointless with the only motivators being cosmetics (wow) or the uniques (also wow) instead of forcing me to use what gear, money, and skill i have to fight nightmare mobs I can just go into norms with the same gear and 2 tap all mobs.

[@Regulated907]

the reason people step into high roller is for better loot. the possibility of uniques is higher and that's what end game dark and darker is.

[@itsalwaysswordfish6433]

@@Regulated907 Loot is mildly better I guess. I can still get a inventory of blues/purple trinkets in norms if you keep going down hell even some royal quality trinkets. Uniques are a cool addition but they shouldn't be the driving force of playing HR.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

They didn't want to do this, but when they gave away Norms-access to the FTP crowd, they really designed their way into the corner. Now they are pretty much stuck in that design space by their business decision. I feel like it's a perversion of their design intent, that we now farm gear in HR to run in normals. It's certainly strange to me, if nothing else. PVP will naturally gravitate to whichever mode has the most players to fight with the least hassle, or to whatever mode allows a player to leverage their gear advantage the most. The primary purpose of PVE / AI in this game is to slow the rate at which players can move across maps to find other players. It's easy to skip content and cheese mobs. Normals, with their easy mobs on the first level, will always be a more fertile ground for PVP because the monsters are such a low threat. More fights / hour = more fun / hour. This is why I raise the question about PVE / AI difficulty. Are we going to see monsters get smart enough to break doors ? Get up onto things ? I don't know, but it's a healthy reinforcement of their primary purpose if they could.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I think this is both true, and a perversion of their original design intent. Now we have people who go into HR to farm and Normals to fight. That being said, Iron mace has done a very poor job of describing what exactly is their end game vision.

[@itsalwaysswordfish6433]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le I don't remember when but a while ago they tried to patch cheese spots for mobs and then we haven't seen any since then. It's pretty disappointing.

[@Drathrin]

Game just feels like im stuck in tar. Cant really build up a decent kit in any sort of good frame time. so sick of the grind. just doesnt feel rewarding and getting killed just feels absolutely devastating. gear in norms feels like trash and people are so pvp hungry, its just boring fighting in low gear, and trying to stack gear feels like shit.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

And you are saying this as a long time player ? What I've found is that I don't really enjoy building kits for High GS games. I have a lot of play time, I can grind it out, I just don't enjoy it.

[@Drathrin]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le over 2700 hours. I could grind it out too. But it doesn't feel rewarding

[@mindtap100]

Last update will solve that feeling. A really good patch.

[@captainlispers]

Range. No risk for missing. I'm okay with being punished for missing but seeing Two pdr fighters with long bows faster than me and never in melee range constantly peppering me with arrows... can't see how that's something someone is okay with. Good with holding multiple windlasses or a crap ton of hunting traps, it's just... makes the game feel really bad

[@CR-xx7kd]

They have no idea what they are doing. If a competitor is able to field anything better than dungeonborne they are done. On that note, does anyone want to make a game?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Ask me again at the end of this wipe. If I feel then, like I feel now, I likely kickstart it myself.

[@badmoon710]

They worry too much about the dumb religion shit and the fucking arenas, instead of worrying about the actual reason why people loved the game

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the comment. Sorry It took me so long to respond, inclement weather here. What is the reason you love dark and darker ?

[@upholsteredhero5216]

Main issue is still the ridiculous % of players and teams who are cheating. Free to play has made normal dungeons basically unplayable.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Cheating I have first hand experience with, is clearly on the rise. So I strongly agree with that assertion. I don't understand how that is related to FTP. Can you expand on that thought ?

[@upholsteredhero5216]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le FTP = free burner account to cheat on without risk.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Hah, YT snagged this reply... cause of the word 'burner' ? who knew. That makes a great deal on sense. Lets hope an a hardware ID ban system can address that concern moving forward.

[@dotapazappy]

This is a good video pushing for a positive direction but personally - I've already given up. Cheaters and the normalization of RMT are the biggest reasons, so many big names or even wardens and moderators of the discord which is the only place to get ANY info on anything from the devs are confirmed cheaters. Most of the people you see in there openly share it and do it or make excuses for it. The game isn't competitively respectable when every wipe the people in the top 10 on the leaderboard are known cheaters like Dytch or noskillbruv that get forgiven over and over again or even given positions of power in the community by the devs. If you can't even do that ironmace and actually punish the people ruining the game, why should I stay? I hope the game does well and I wish them the best but as someone here from the start that played in high level lobbies this is where I get off the train. I'd rather play deadlock or something else I have more faith in. Dark and darker is cool but I've come to actively dislike the community as we've bled all our casual players and we can't even be honest about calling out cheaters anymore. The map design of just sticking endless nightmare mobs in highroller and doing PVE bosses over and over just to grind money to lose it to a cheater is boring, I'm sorry but it is. It's not skilled and worse than that, it's boring.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the detailed comment, I've put a small poll into the field to try and get them better, broader perspective around some of your points.

[@dotapazappy]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le I'll make sure to vote on it sorry for the late response. Honestly most of my comment is just me coping with the state of things but I don't actually want to view the game negatively since I did love it a lot at one point.

[@Yaardrake]

I dont wanna sound like one of IM haters, but I've been around since first playtests. I've held the line, I believed in the 9th, I was there all this time. And one thing I've started to understand is, Ironmace devs have no idea what they're doing. I kinda just feel like the core of the game, it's strongest point that made it completely explode in popularity is what was created during devs' time at Nexon, but now that they are on their own, having to ACTUALLY MAKE THE GAME now, they're just stuck. They go back and forth on balance changes because they just dont know how to deal with their classes interacting with each other, the new content is added with snail-pace and every time it feels like it was added at the lowest possible cost and effort, with Arena and Religion mechanic being top example: Arena is just copy-pasted existing room without any changes at all, with sub-bosses, chests, mobs and all, with shameless "New game mode" stample, and religion is just "drop gold to get + 0.0000001% to bowel movement efficiency" type of buff. Watching DaD's development as a fan was like watching your loved one slowly succumb to an illness with incompetent doctors take care of it.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the great comment. " Watching DaD's development as a fan was like watching your loved one slowly succumb to an illness with incompetent doctors take care of it. " Very well said.

[@puwupperdestiny2520]

Dont get me wrong you have a ton of valid points like a TON that I agree with but Kimchi truck is absurd LMAO

[@ShutoStriker]

Balance is single handedly the most important aspect to dial in for the core gameplay experience. Otherwise it's just droves of people playing the flavor of the month / patch of the week meta because it's EZ while other classes getting dumpstered. I was about to buy the full game as a FTP rogue main last season (and this season) then the next day rogue got those massive hide + creep nerfs. It's been downhill ever since with more chipped away this wipe. I'm so glad I did not buy. I haven't played much lately. I'm actually bummed for some time now because there are not many games I play, but I cannot buy a product from people who are so insanely out of touch with their own creation simultaneously over and under correcting time after time. Rogue is a meme hands down the worst class now, and balance is all over the place when fighter is a better rogue and ranger; among so many other stupid problems to have. I don't feel confident in them anymore. All the poorly added things are like band-aid distractions wasting dev time.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

It's been tough sledding for the Rogues for a while now. Sorry to hear it bud. If you wait long enough, your turn on the balance carousel will come back around. Rogues have almost never been balanced in the history of this game. They seem to always be either OP or trash tier.

[@ayron419]

As a player with roughly 200ish hours, I can say I find a few of these points a bit too harsh. Some I'll list my opinion (not fact, my opinion) below: Communication to the player: their discord is run fairly well imo. I agree it would be nice to have more warning on hotfixes that take thr server down in-game, but the discord otherwise has worked well enough for me. 2. Randomized spawn and mob loading: this thought I'm not married to, but as my time in the game has gone on, I find it enjoyable to have some amount of predictability so that you can fine tune your process and even plan out how your run is going. Eg: I wanna hit x room to kill x mob and then hit x boss, etc. I understand this absolutely means a hurdle for new players, but I don't think an extraction game inherently is ever going to be sunshine and roses for new players. 3. Ui/UX: the main menus need serious love, but in game I have no issue personally. I'd honestly be sad if the game just become another world of warcraft clone with he UI and spellcasting system.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I accept that I pressed a few of these points hard and revisiting them, I could have been more measured. Thanks. You and I will strongly disagree on the communication point. communication is largely about setting expectations, not just describing what you have done, but why. The larger context for what Iron Mace does, or attempts to do, is largely unexplained or worse, unknowable. As customers, it's a bit grating. As an engaged extended team who are here to assist in 'testing' their early access builds, it's infuriating. The predictability you describe beginning to love, eventually turns into a sort of intellectus. This includes knowing where every monsters is in every module is, how they will path and behave and upon what obstacles you can foul them up. I think this is a long term drag on replay-ability but more so a huge advantage which long time players can easily leverage against new ones. It's certainly a confidence booster once you have several hundred hours under your belt. I feel like a boiled frog about the UI/UX. I've been slowly boiled over my time with the game over the last year. Yes, I'm largely talking about the out-of-raid menus and interactions, in-game is passable because we don't need to interact much with it. I bring up the boiled frog because I'm mostly comfortable with what it is at this point. I bring this up, as dozen of new players aren't able to get beyond it to experience the good parts of the game. I think this feeds into my point about measuring bounce off rates at different junctures. If 20 % of lost players are bouncing before hour 5, and the UX is to blame, it's something we should better understand address. I appreciate your point of view, and thanks for taking the time to post a detailed comment.

[@creepyoutdoors4451]

Wait till you are 2000 hours in the game you won't think his opinions are harsh newbie

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@creepyoutdoors4451 I think it's rather telling that you can call a player with 200 hours of game play under their belt a newbie, and it somehow fits. What a ridiculous 'hobby' we have.

[@SailorIvo]

Tweaking numbers by doubling them or halving them, sometimes even %300 +/- and calling it "balance" was why i dropped the game. Anyone with competitive gaming background would understand that balancing is done by statistics for low and high skill ceiling to tune numbers up and down. Yes i said tune, not DOUBLE or TRIPLE values on demand of Reddit, content creators or discord spammers. On top of that i realized that (after +500 hours playtime in 2 months) this company does not plan to invest into the future of this game. It feels like they have 1 coder, 2 designers, 1 guy that has no idea how to balance/polish the meta and a small house office. Goddamn, even the smallest hot fix takes hours to apply, then there is 20 new bugs that people abuse. Every...single...patch. Then there is one of the most toxic, fanatic, non-agreeable balance chatter community out there. It's always "my class is weak and needs a buff" and "it's skill issue" arguments. Try to say in any chat that one shotting bosses are not a good idea for an extraction looter, you will get curb stomped. They act like the same people that play a souls game for a month, memorize every powerspike item locations for their runs or every animation to dodge a boss, then to feel better, they go out there and tell new players "skill issue". Yeah, knowing how to cheese any mob by standing on top of an object or camping bosses (that nearly one shot you if you didn't pixel perfect position) to third party, what a gameplay that is, wow!

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the detailed comment. The one through thread of folks who feel let down by the 'balance attempts' is both how they go about it and a lack of communication of intent. Context, grounded in data points, is the key here. Iron Mace has stumbled here before. Leading up to the steam release, the daily active players had sunk to less than 5 k users. IMO, mostly driven by months of balance carousel nonsense capped off by disastrously 'tests' of a proto-multiclassing system. The only path forward for balance, has to be data driven, systematic and incremental. To your point, the arbitrarily 25 % swings in either direction feels just like Kentucky windage.

[@Axel-vt8no]

I have over 1500 hours in-game, and I'm one of the 50% of the players that left, and that was around 3-4 weeks after they went F2P. I loved the game, but I became so overwhelmingly fatigued from the whiplash patches with wild nerfs or buffs to classes that nobody asked for, or were nonsensical, that I decided to put the game down for a while and play some other things. I've been having a blast playing Predecessor, Hunt Showdown, and Frost Punk 2. So much so, that I consider myself completely removed from Dark and Darker with no yearning to play anymore, and it feels like I'm completely free from the madness that was the weekly patches and also from arguing on that god-forsaken 95 IQ subreddit. The main cause of these issues is poor leadership. SDF wakes up in the morning, and starts to brew his coffee. While brewing his coffee all these wild ideas start popping into his head that he must implement in this weeks patch. '+2 all atts just wasn't implement right last time', 'We must adjust Rogue stealth once again' 'We should make everyone rogue-like with creep', 'Wizard needs some random nerfs', 'I must take Kris dagger away from Warlock' etc etc... It's all whiplash madness. He's the leader, but also the creator of the idea. He needs to have a guy above him... an actual CEO type guy... that runs the business. SDF needs to be put into a closet where they slide food under the door, and then in return he slides his creative ideas under that same door, and they're scribbled maniacally on a half-used napkin. Then the CEO takes all things going on into consideration, and gives a thumbs up or down on the proposed ideas. He stops the weekly update madness, and mandates that the updates will occur once every 3 weeks. 2 weeks for update creation, 1 week for testing, and then the head QA guy can sign his name on the patch as being good to go. If something's wrong with the patch, and they have to do another panic emergency patch, or a roll back, well... Head QA gets a lashing. If it happens too many times, then the head QA guy gets the boot, and they find someone else. TLDR: Ironmace has a leadership problem, and I'm probably not coming back until they fix it. There have many problems but leadership is the root of most of them.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Well I'm glad to see that you are alive and thriving out there. You are replaying all of our greatest hits here. Mature the process, stabilize the releases. Fully integrate testing. Establish vision and build momentum in that direction ! Also, I agree that the subreddit is a special place. I'm getting a lot of unsolicited advice to go play other games, and your post card looks very nice. Thanks for checking in, don't be a stranger.

[@Axel-vt8no]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le Thanks for the response. I tune in from time to time brotha. I like your takes. See ya around.

[@poisonddogpoisonddog6212]

I’m stuck in arenas with really bad team8s, I have 240 gs and I’m getting fighters that avoid fighting at all costs till they’re last man running in circles, it’s actually really bad, or wizards that use white rondel dagger instead of magic, that’s literally a wizard without magic. Fighters scared to fight and wizards scared to cast

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Sounds un-fun to me. I have a lot of teaming privilege, as I have close friends who still play and a whole discord community to play with. All of that to say that I don't often queue up with a dice roll to see who I get as my team mate. Do you have this same experience in the game's other modes like crypts ? I'm curious if this is just a an arena's thing or if it happens more broadly. My 3's arena experience has mostly been, we load in, stomp round one, enemy teams leaves the match.

[@blazzerr1y]

They literally just created a map and quests for the game, and you're saying they've put more effort into the shop than the game's UI? I don't agree that classes are the reason players stick with the game. Just look at the Druid-this class has caused so many players to quit because it's so poorly designed. I do agree that arenas and the religion system are terrible. Just make the ranking system already. In every game when theres preseason the playerbase is droping

[@sujal_kd]

tf u mean they created a map all arena map is the same 3 maps with some doors

[@blazzerr1y]

@@sujal_kd in game map bro, you press M and it shows the map. thats ui

[@oidotsuc5165]

There's no new map ​@@blazzerr1y Ruins is almost the same as the old 1 And the other 3 maps are still the same

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm a big fan of the new ruins map. It's a renovation of the old ruins map, but they have done a lot of work to make it far far better. My last video was a love letter to this map. But it's not representative of one or more engineering teams working for 8 months. Hitting M to bring up a JPEG with your character overlaid on a coordinate system is not a significant improvement in the user experience. Is it a great stand alone feature than a junior dev could code in a sprint, or maybee two if we are being REALLY generous ? Yes. I like it. But at the end of the day, it's not the in-raid UI which needs work.

[@m0nookiE]

Marauders moment

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm sorry to say, I don't get this reference.

[@gynipig]

I enoyed this game last year when it was more casual now its kinda sweay as well people abusing the fuck outta the current weekly meta

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I enjoy the game now, but I have to caveat that. I don't see them reaching for their potential and I don't see their additional investment in a larger team paying any dividends. As I am collecting some of these reasons why players have walked away from the game, how do you feel the game has gotten sweatier over the last year ?

[@gynipig]

@WrathofKoopa-fs8le i still play the game occasionally, but I don't really mean sweaty it's more just I don't enjoy that people only play the strongest class after every rebalance one week you only run into wizards then druids then barbs etc. Another weird thing I've been stumbling onto a lot is the double jump spamming on ruins where it is legitimately impossible to fight them

[@igorbrown3756]

​@WrathofKoopa-fs8le just from what I've noticed is everyone that's decent or better at the game either plays sub 25 to Timmy stomp or only play meta builds in high roller. It's unfair to new players and boring to veterans. 50% of that is definitely the players faults though

[@gynipig]

@@igorbrown3756 right its not even worth mentioning the 124 lobby druid ordeal

[@shadowbanned340]

druids gotta go. hwid ban them.

[@user-qc5te9wk1s]

No, only people that are still playing for the vets at the side and the few that stuck with it from steam. We are no better than from Steam. We have the same amount of current players.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Based purely on my guesses, my KZbin analytics and my discord, I would say that we've lost about half of the long time vets in the last 4 months, but back filled them with new folks from the steam release. I personally know quite a few folks who have simply given up over the last 90 days, who have played most of the last year. I take your point though, We are back where we started at 20 K daily active players. Are we better off for it ? I can't say, but Iron Mace clearly made millions off it.

[@clepla2012]

I really liked this game, and primarily liked running norms. I was 12th on the normal ranked ladder at one point (FurdwarthBunkledunk in game name) and ended the season 22nd. I quit ranked play from consistently being teamed on, which has been somewhat addressed. I quit the game as a whole b/c of balance, being one shot by druids and the normal mode being dissected into the multiple gear score zones. This game is punishing. You lose everything on death (minus the crappy buy back mechanic.) So to continue to tune the game towards one shot deaths, dying to glitches, and having the sweats invade normal lobbies made it too punishing for me, and I'm pretty sweaty myself. I came to the realization that I either endure the pain of loss over and over or join the meta slaves and exploit the newbs. I didn't like either option so I left. IMO if they upped the time to kill, gave each class a ranged weapon of some sort as it gives a huuuge advantage (a sling and rocks for cleric/barb would slap) and maybe limit the number of equipped items you can loot off of a player this game would be more fun, and fun is what we're here for. It's so hard on the new players in general, but when things feel unfair (see one shotting) I think its just human nature to either join the cheese or to just leave as I did. Just one mans opinion. Thx for the vid.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks for the detailed context. To paraphrase your experience, it seems that balance would be the top level category. To hit that level on the leaderboard you've clearly invested a lot of play time. Do you intend to check back in on the game at some point, or do you think you are done ?

[@clepla2012]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le TBH I've lost any trust in the developers at this point. Their focus on ever broadening content w/o honing in on core issues is worrisome. I also did come back about a month ago, in my first match back I had a druid spawn rush my sector in the first (no lie) 15 seconds of the match, and then one shot me after I dodged 4 attacks. Unfun.

[@TheDantsu]

So what you're saying is that we need to buff druid and warlock?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm afraid I may not have connected with you as a viewer, this was not my central message :) I'll try better in future.

[@juansek208]

I'm F2P right now. I like the game, but idk if I want to buy it yet. I played Dungeonborne first (before they axed SA servers), and that game felt way more satisfying in every way. The gameplay, the game modes, the rewards, etc. I wish D&D payed more attention to the players.

[@kidkodex7696]

That game died for a reason tho lol just wasn’t great

[@shu3684]

db more satisfying? why dont u play it then? xD

[@juansek208]

@@shu3684 BECAUSE THEY AXED OUR SERVERS. If I want to play it, I have to deal with 200ms. You try to sound smart, but you are dumb asf.

[@juansek208]

@@kidkodex7696 Yes. same problems that D&D has. Developers ignoring feedback and focusing on things people didn't care. Also, axing the whole SA player base.

[@juansek208]

@@shu3684 BECAUSE THEY AXED OUR SERVERS. If I want to play it, I have to deal with 200ms. You are dumb ASF.

[@Wake-Up47]

Video is too negative. We have plenty of triple A studios with constant communication, timelines, community feedback, and content pipelines. Most of the games they generate are complete trash. I’m not saying the game is perfect or that I wouldn’t like them to focus on certain things, but video is just too negative overall.

[@iKawf]

It's honestly not an attack to IM but a genuine communication of grievances. It's definitely needed for the overall games improvement

[@shu3684]

its negative for a good reason, stop glazing over devs. The fact that they created a good game prototype doesnt mean we cant critique it for lack of direction in development

[@theseusandaphaea]

Sincere question, are you suggesting that studios that focus on those factors you mentioned cause bad games? Or am I misinterpreting you. I don't quite see how a studio can't provide those factors and make a good game. I understand the sentiment that you wouldn't want them to badly distribute efforts and energy, but given 100 employees, I doubt that's a high bar. I think I read somewhere that part if not all of why IM doesn't give things like stats anymore is due to the lawsuit, so perhaps they were planning on better communication? I don't know.

[@Wake-Up47]

@@theseusandaphaea somewhat. I’m not saying it’s a direct cause but it’s certainly symptomatic. I can give direct examples of each. For one, any gaming community is effectively insatiable. Therefore taking in too much feedback and direct criticism can put them on a endless hamster wheel. The visionary, in this case the two lead devs have to stay true to their own vision or else you will get some watered down version that’s a blend of every other game you have played in the last 15 years. All you need to do is look at most of the suggestions and they almost all are completely myopic or say something to the effect of “like in this game I used to play” Put in talent trees “like in wow” Put in runes “like in Diablo” Put in PVE only “like in PVE friendly games” Make the classes “like in the MMO’s I’m used to playing” Etc etc etc That appeals greatly to the casual players because it’s just an extension of games they are used to. That is why every triple A studio continues to produce derivatives of existing games or simply re-skinning something and calling it a new game. The “content pipeline” just becomes an endless conveyer of mediocrity and garbage.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

If for no other reason, thanks for helping me calibrate the negativity. What I'm attempting to do is to level measured criticism, the purpose of which is to promote dialog and achieve positive changes in the game. The game we all care about. I'm in a bit of a catch 22 with this measured approuch, as I'm frequently being told I'm either too harsh or to easy in practically every project. With regard to your comparison to triple A gaming in general; there is a lot to unpack here. Triple A games are largely made by peering through the lens of maximizing shareholder interests. Even if those companies leverage principles I believe in, like transparency and meaningful communication in their dev process, it's not those principles which result in dilute, least common denominator blandness you appear to revile. It's the slavish devotion to profit over fun. It's the crunch to meet a content delivery timeline for quarterly board reports to recognize the revenue. It's a process which is designed to achieve speed over quality, for profits sake. I want SDF, terry and the team at iron mace to wake up every day and ask themselves, " Is this thing fun ? Can I make it more fun ? Does it meet our standard of quality ". These are the questions that make great games. It's not, " How can I increase the average revenue per hour in the cash shop ". With regard to communication, we have very little to work with regarding intent and this is an area of tremendous opportunity. It's the difference in saying, "We are now allowing Franny Axes to stack two times " to something like this : "We are concerned that the high move speed meta has grown to the point that melee characters can not compete. We hear your feedback that melee characters are spending too much time chasing other classes they can never catch. To combat this, we are making a change to frany axes to stack in twos as they have before. What we are testing here, is if this small change has a larger impact in Fighter's and Barb's ability to gap close on classes X,Y,Z, and whether that is a means to arrive at a more healthy balance. " What this does is communicate : 1. What we are changing, 2. Why we think it needs to be changed. 3. What we hope to achieve through the change and ( maybe I'm asking to much here ) 4. How we intend to measure the change. We are not just customers of an early access game. We are also testers. We need this level of context if we are able to render reasonable feedback, let alone focus on what we are being asked to focus on.

[@sebastianleister355]

Well let's hope it gets better. Would be a shame if the game would fail rn! I played a lot since the wipe. And I actually never had any rubberbanding since then. U guys play on the correct server? I play on central EU.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Yeah, I've even asked a few of these folks to try different regions to look for better results. If you are having the issue, it follows you from region to region.

[@ernest4077]

The balance circle around timmies and complainer which not seeing big picture. Its literally testing out of customer patients and bottom lines. Yes I am talking about warlock, if do nerfing do it in another way, create counter play. Not endlessly nerfing it, end up will be nobody play warlock anymore. Or worse they choose to leave.

[@ivvvy]

sums it up. IM has constantly killed playstyles in the aim of trying to balancing the game, old rogue comes to mind and now warlock. They really do need to add more counters instead of hard nerfs.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

The thing is, this is not a game with a large number of playstyles.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Which is precisely why they should be measuring bounce off rates and have someone looking at player retention data on the regular. If a nerf comes in and the average daily player count takes a giant hit, maybe follow-up with those former customers ? I don't know it has too be this hard, this is pretty basic stuff.

[@ernest4077]

@@ivvvy Old rogue has a problem with landmine that was widespread indeed, but instead of killing stealth they could have added a magical lantern share the same effect as light orb. Or turn same item could burn to kill warlock healing factor even during phantomize? That is just for example ofc. Any other way to counterplay is a warm welcome.

[@ernest4077]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le They consider streamer build and reddit loudest crowd as the main playerbase I have to assume. Not every player shares ideas but silently plays the game. Some nerf just kicking them out of the community such as my former group. I've seen lot of solid suggestion out there in suggestion discuss channel on discord but seems ironmace usually too busy to read discord for a second. UX kind of basic for any product no?

[@Pace_Of_Snell]

Kimchi Truck-kun lol

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Have you heard of the murderous American Pickle-truck ? 'Getting run over by the pickle truck' is a hypothetical poised in a number of American MBA courses when discussing continuity planning. What would we do in sales, if Martha got run over by the pickle truck ? I swapped it over to Kimchi to make the it more Korean flavored, but I'm sure the idiom will not travel well regardless.

[@hottubtoohot5815]

If you don't like the game, dont play it and quit crying. The devs are very vocal about the lack of content. Their entire focus is in the nexon case in korea. Everything theyve added was low hanging fruit. They plan on going ham once its over. Which i think the case is getting resolved this week.

[@griftr5815]

good faith, why do you think the case is getting resolved this week?

[@kevinmadsen2083]

As much as I want the case to be resolved, I had heard from Kira that the verdict is October 24th.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

"If you don't like the game, dont play it and quit crying." - No. Shan't. I will instead exercise my right to free speech, exactly as you have. Very vocal you say ? Like what they are working on, when they anticipate it be ready, where it fits in the overall product strategy ? Terry had an opportunity to illustrate exactly how court obligations, depositions etc where impacting their ability to deliver content. He could have garnered a great deal of sympathy in the course. Instead he chose to illuminate how critical SDF is in their process, to the point that they can't really work when he's distracted by other factors in his life. What does 'Going Ham' look like. Same questions. What will they begin working on at resolution of the case that they are not working on now ? When do they expect to be finished ? How does that new work integrate into their final vision of the product. I know you must think I sound like an asshole here. But these are easy questions to answer, if only they had enough respect for their customers to put an hour into laying out anything resembling a plan.

[@CodyisKing]

The balancing is absolute trash, the area constantly gives you timers for leaving when you didn't and takes your minted items, the normal dungeons are boring AF with nothing in the game to do or make it feel alive. The game is riddled with cheaters which you can not report in area. But the main thing is the garbage movement slowns and rubber banding.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm creating a bit of a catalog of grievances here. You are punctuating 1. Arena Bugs 2. Dungeon AI too boring 3. Cheaters 4. Server performance, D-synch and rubber banding. In that order ? Are you still playing ?

[@propiranna]

Most of this guys points are kindq shit ngl.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Which of my points do you think are 'kindq shit ngl' ?

[@propiranna]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le In regards to resources/people available to work: Just increasing the number of people working at iron mace will not fix their current issues with the "lack" of content getting pushed out that door. It can help, which is why they have already hired more people not too long ago, however those people need to be properly onboarded and trained. This can be done with relatively no friction if the company has the money and man power to do it. Iron mace is not a AAA, AA or even an A game company. They are a indie company, trying to constantly add more people to the pipeline does not only disturb the current pipeline but it also causes it to restructure, causing even more delays and may even destroy the work culture. Being an indie company also limits their budget to hire employees as well, unlike bigger companies, like the one they are in a legal battle with which is likely also draining resources other than SDF's time. And to reiterate that last point, they are being sued by nexon, a stupidly large company, that alone is a massive resource drain and major time wastor, and during that they are still releasing content for the game. In regards to content: Yes, the lack of the banshee is sad, i would like to see it working already as well. If its broken though then i see no reason to release it in broken state, especially as its apart of the stable and functionning main mode of dark and darker. However that isnt to say that dark and darker got no fucking content this wipe. If yoi havent noticed they readded ruins with some fairly substantial changes, revamped the map to address player concerns about too much wide open long spaces, added new exits to better interact with the removal of the swarm. They added new mobs with the introduction of unique namrd mobs that drop unique loot and updated monsters spawns so that they were abit more random(would also like to see like 30-40% more randomness for spawns, but it is a start). They even added the expressman so that people can experience each floor of the forgotten castle in one run(with the reintroduction of the best boy, Otto). Thats on top of adding arena, a side mode that you can be played using loot you found from the main mode, where you can pratice pvp(and some pve) without as much stress of losing your gear(it is a bit bugged in that terms rn? Ya, but its not like they are ignoring that issue). Would i like a personal area to practice simple things like weapon animations and damage testing, yes, but that involves figuring out a solution to how thats done. Would it be solo only? Would it be like pubg's practice areas where you load in with other ppl? Both have different questions that need to be answered. If Solo only then how do you allocate server space, do you add new systems to account for solo lobbies and would allowing solo lobbies be even financially doable for them? If it relies on client self hosting then that could bring in others issues of ppl possibly abusing that to change things like rarity of the equipment they bring in through either packet or file manipulations or granting themselves shit tons of gold/useful resources. If its multiple ppl per session then do you just use max player count for each lobby? Do you add restrictions to dropping things as other ppl could pick it up and walk away with it, even if quiting gets you the item back you would still likely haveto wait for the person who stole your shit to leave the lobby too. Do you add a time limit to the group pratice lobbies, how long if so? Whole bunch of questions have got to be asked for it, whereas arena was likely, where do the matches take place? how do they allocate server space for them, that one is probably a bit related to the current issue of ppl losing their items. How long should it be, and how do you force players to fight? A lot of those are questions have easier answers or already existing ones(server stuff being the one really hard one). In regards to why SDF doesnt just put stuff onto other people so that more content could come out quicker: Fuck you thats why, that point was just fucking stupid. Bro has a project, a game hes so passionate about makinh that he quits nexon to persue this CREATIVE endeavour. Does it need money and resources to create a game and run a company? Yes, no shit, and to get that you need to deliver a product that ppl will want to play and spend their time and money on. Should that mean giving up on being hands on with your creation, your little brain child? Fuck no. Simple as that. If you didnt know, SDF is very hands on with the creation of dark and darker. Game making is an art, despite what the big wigs in the industry may tell you. Saying, SDF should just give all if not most his work to other ppl is like telling someone that they should give up on their passion project. "what if SDF dies tomorrow, what will happen then" As one of the company owners and hands on ppl making the game, it would probably be a massive blow to the company and their game development and who knows how they will continue, but that is such a shit point to make, and even worst thing to tell someone that is working on their passion. "Hey man, dont pursue the things you want to do cause you may die before you can finish them". Real fucking useful that is. We wouldnt have baldurs gate 3 the way we got it if Swen Vincke decided to leave larian studios or have someone else take over his role in fear that he might suddenly die one day. That not to say that i dont expect new content for the game, but im also not deluded and expect a company thats getting sued by a company infinitely bigger than them to be running at full sails while one of the main minds behind the game is being distracted. I also dont expect their to be infinite content in an early access game, which it still is. I paid for the game knowing full well thats what it was, and im not expecting this game to be feature complete for atleast another year, but more likely 3 years. Was gonna add more but forgot the contents of the vid, and i dont wanna rewatch mostly bad takes.

[@viktor1master]

After they nerfed my rogue egain and lets druids abuse rat bug heal even after a patch ye ironmace can F themself with this shit they suck ass with patches

[@joris55516]

They fixed the rat heal bug

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

No extra credit for fixing today what we should have caught in testing yesterday.

[@maxkent4819]

We are promised all of this content only for it to be half baked and useless. Arena is a complete letdown. Religion is pointless and dumb. Ruins is the only good thing to come out of this wipe(old map btw) with "polishing". Quests are slightly better but are the same. This game definitely suffers the same thing as tarkov does where new players will feel way to overwhelmed and quit. But hold the line ig 😢

[@TheRealKinetic-q1t]

Ruins is a horrible map design wise and plays terribly in any queue.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

It's funny to me, as an old timer who lived through the early days of Nexxon aggression, how we used this slogan to unify the community in the face of the game's possible annihilation. Now it's used in the hope of enduring self inflicted pain.

[@jacobwells9792]

Meh I think the game is Greta but do wish there were more noobs

[@shadowbanned340]

delete druid holy shit thats why.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I know you are being hyperbolic in this comment, but to tack on, their is something to it. The first order question is, " Is this class fun to play as designed ? " The second order question is " Is this class fun to play against as designed ? " I think most players would say the answer to question two, is no. No it is not. They went around and around with trying to balance land mine rouges, not because that playstyle was OP, but because it was ZERO fun to play into. It's only a matter of time before they Nerf druids along similar lines of thought.

[@shadowbanned340]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le no actually deleted druid and hwid ban the ppl who use it. maybe slightly exaggerating, but theres no reason i should build max ms and a hairlip druid with 300 ms panther is eating my ass. or flying bearing me, or took 5 dmg and rats away through ten doors just to opportunistically wait and third party later.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@shadowbanned340 You are describing every encounter I've had with a geared druid. HW ID ban, I loled at that.

[@shadowbanned340]

oh look, yt deleted my comments. probably a druid main mod.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I checked to see if your replies got stuck in the 'waiting for mod' section, but it's all clear.

[@yungfemur5246]

Peak

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Thanks ! ? for watching.

[@luisgonzaga9286]

You sound in need of playing another game, this video sounded like you were talking about work, like some critics are 100% valid, but you sound way too much invested in a game my dude, stop it get some help.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

A fair point, It's very close to what I do for work. I'll take your advice kind internet stranger.

[@eyeofthevoid693]

Another deadass youtuber trying to gain views. What did you expect that people will stay or they will make this game better by adding pve mode?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Your cynicism around people trying to promote their channels or self-interests is well founded, and I'll give you a pass on the ad-homonym. Though even a casual examination of my YT catalog would dispel your concerns. What do I expect ? I expect Dark and Darker to reach for its potential and become the best version of itself. Iron Mace is clearly struggling now, as they have in the past. I have two options, do nothing, or lend my limited voice and reach in furtherance of a conversation which leans into process and industry best practices to escape their current challenges. I expect to be communicated with, like an adult. Iron Mace fundamentally fails at setting expectations, setting timelines, or coming close to helping us understand the 'intent' behind the changes they make. I find this kind of communication ( or lack of ...) it to be fundamentally disrespectful to our collective time investments.

[@solemasta2036]

Wow you ever thought that dark and darker is just a niche game that isn't as popular as you want it to be. Stop trying to tell people how to do there job its not criticism it's just cringe what your doing.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

It is the literal definition of criticism. I happen to like Dark and Darker and I want to see it be the best version of itself. If it's all the same to you, I'll continue to exercise my first amendment rights, but you also have every right to both disagree and dislike. What an age we live in.

[@Jungus1999]

Ironmace’s embarrassing negligence of their game is starting to convince me that they’re anticipating a verdict in favor of Nexon to be handed down in October, and they’re just going through the motions. The recent frenzied focus on the cash shop and skins is further evidence of this.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

I'm not really familiar with Korean IP laws, but if we were talking about the US, Iron Mace would get hit with some large fines ( not in excess of total revenues ) and Nexxon would get to make determinations on the ongoing running of the game including a judgement against future revenues. I guess my point is this, even if they rake in a bunch of short term cash from skin sales, Nexxon is going to get all those dollars regardless, so why go through the trouble ?

[@Jungus1999]

@@WrathofKoopa-fs8le I think that’s a well considered counterpoint, maybe I was overly uncharitable. That said, I do think the glacial pace of development could be related to the impending verdict, and I also don’t buy their “my dog ate my homework” explanation for the Felidian debacle.

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

@@Jungus1999 Fair Fair. The glacial pace of content development is not at all corollate-able with investment or team size. Hard HARD agree. Bonus points for the DOG ate my homework wordplay around the CAT skin. Well played.

[@WasianGangster]

i think arena is essential, it gives player the ability to learn PVP without punishment

[@saint_snow]

literally so does sub 25 lobbies using squire gear.

[@tabaranuclaudiu3627]

@@saint_snowwrong. Certain classes are better with gear. Playing a rogue ranger or wizard in

[@shu3684]

arena is kinda trash and waste of dev time + more splitting queues which is already a problem

[@tabaranuclaudiu3627]

@@shu3684 splitting queues means players have decide what to play. Some want < 25, other < 124, 125+, HR, arena. It’s way better than white gear or HR like 2 wipes ago. As for me, I played than aweful Dungeonborn just for Arena and arena only. And there are a lot of players with the same needs. If you are pvp hungry go to arena. In this way we can trim HR sweaty players with spawn rushing and stuff, which is not fun, and a good reason people are avoiding HR. season Rewards **** ****, players are aweful, why play HR at all. Just stick to

[@saint_snow]

@@tabaranuclaudiu3627 lol your're losing nothing though bc its squire gear. He said pvp without punishment. Also 60 cast speed in white gear? We really out here complaining about that? Man this community got soft. That's way better than what wiz used to be. Just crazy to see people using white gear lobbies as a excuse when it used to be all of normals was white gear only.. Like no one complained about it. Lmao reaching 15 strength on rogue and ranger...What if I told you, fighter had that base and can still use all their weapons. I aint disagreeing, those classes are in the gutter as long as weapon mastery exists.

[@Dendell22]

Whats wrong with the ui?

[@WrathofKoopa-fs8le]

Where to start, It's not intuitive and it has lots of sharp edges which snag at you the more you use it. A clean user experience is intuitive and frictionless. What we have today is neither, but this is an important factor in keeping users in the experience, if they plan to derive maximum value from microtransactions. Here are a few of my least favorite UI defects right now : 1. When you select the marketplace search interface, you don't default focus the first search field. Every time you want to search for an item, you have to click into the small search field in the top bar or far left corner. Having focus here silly. 2. Shift + Click in the game menus allows for quick sending of items to the secondary window. In Raid, it drops it on the floor. How does this context sensitive function work in a world where the expressman exists, blending both domains and contexts. 3. The expressman not having the ability to work outside of one or two clicks per item when his design is to move multiple items. An intern could code a 'buy all' button in a few hours, no reasons this system should be in this state. 4. Seasonal Merchants displace 'regular' merchants in the merchant interface. And I could go on and on and on, but at it's heart, the Dark and Darker interface is just a copy of what Tarkov put together in 2016, and it was substandard and antiquated for it's time.