Yet another thread on how to save the game (YATOHTSTG)
flubby
Posts: 51Player
Everyone's favorite topic is back! But this time is different. Here's a summary of all the negative reviews on steam from Aug 1, 2015 -> present, which roughly coincides with the game's release date. I think the sample is big enough and more importantly its relevant to the final game. I've tried to classify each comment into the appropriate bucket as fairly as I can, but some discretion is being applied. Sometimes reviewers leave multiple comments but those comments all get counted. Hopefully this can be a civilized discussion 
* applies to both open-beta and final release
Other
Advertising 5
Preferred beta/AA2/AA3 18
Lack of servers 2
Technical Issues
comment: Sometimes the reason provided isn't very clear, so it's possible some of the issues below could really be the same thing (for example 'sign in issues' may be the same as 'game wouldn't load'), but I can't really tell the exact reason for some of them.
Game kept kicking (pb) 22
Game kept kicking (not pb) 15
Sign in issues 8
Game wouldn't load 5
Buggy/Unstable (game crashes/game bugs) 25
Laggy/Bad netcode 15
Game performance (low fps) 10
Graphic bugs (including shadows) 2
Lack of game support 1
Poor audio 6
Gameplay
Too much time between respawns 5
Getting kicked for being idle 1
Lack of votekick 2
No way to identify & report cheaters/griefers 1
Mechanics
Not skill based 2
Lack of attention to comp community 1
Too much (or trying to be) like CS:GO/COD 6
Not enough realism 8
Hit detection/Bullet mechanics/ADS/Recoil/Control issues 12
Feels 'clunky' 3
Lack of gun balance 1
Supported 1
Enemy spotting 1
Features
Not enough guns/Skins 4
Poor graphics 2
Too few maps 2
Maps too basic in appearance 2
Community
'Too many cheaters' could just be frustration at being new at the game and getting killed all the time. Or it can really be too many cheaters, but I don't think so. Some of it can be counted in the 'matchmaking system' bucket because that would be the fix, but I kept it separate because there were people who explicitly asked for it.
Abusive players 9
Lack of help for new players 3
Too many cheaters 7
Not enough teamwork/Communication 5
Lack of matchmaking based on skill 5
Team stacking 1
* Votekick/ban abuse 5
Finally, a breakdown:
Other 11.21%
Technical Issues 48.88%
Gameplay 4.04%
Mechanics 15.70%
Features 4.48%
Community 15.70%
I think it's clear that a lot of the negative reviews are for technical issues (pb is probably the biggest issue for most people). If that can be fixed at least more people would have a chance to play the game and hopefully like it long enough to stick around. Maybe they'll get their friends to play it too.
For community, probably a skill matching system would resolve almost all the issues. It would cut down on all the abuse and the feeling that everyone else is cheating because they're better than you.
Game mechanics has been discussed to death so I'm not going to go into that, but people did raise them. The one thing I will say though is that it's probably better just to REFINE the game than to make it radically different than what it is now. Nobody wants to keep re-learning how to play a game, especially if you've invested so many hours in playing a certain way. And no, I'm not sure some of the changes being proposed are really improving the game in any way, other than for a small group of players.
I'm also going to say that radically changing the game again will probably turn more people off, and the next survey for the next version we'll probably have a higher number of people who stop playing because they thought AAPG was the best (as some think beta/AA2 were).
* applies to both open-beta and final release
Other
Advertising 5
Preferred beta/AA2/AA3 18
Lack of servers 2
Technical Issues
comment: Sometimes the reason provided isn't very clear, so it's possible some of the issues below could really be the same thing (for example 'sign in issues' may be the same as 'game wouldn't load'), but I can't really tell the exact reason for some of them.
Game kept kicking (pb) 22
Game kept kicking (not pb) 15
Sign in issues 8
Game wouldn't load 5
Buggy/Unstable (game crashes/game bugs) 25
Laggy/Bad netcode 15
Game performance (low fps) 10
Graphic bugs (including shadows) 2
Lack of game support 1
Poor audio 6
Gameplay
Too much time between respawns 5
Getting kicked for being idle 1
Lack of votekick 2
No way to identify & report cheaters/griefers 1
Mechanics
Not skill based 2
Lack of attention to comp community 1
Too much (or trying to be) like CS:GO/COD 6
Not enough realism 8
Hit detection/Bullet mechanics/ADS/Recoil/Control issues 12
Feels 'clunky' 3
Lack of gun balance 1
Supported 1
Enemy spotting 1
Features
Not enough guns/Skins 4
Poor graphics 2
Too few maps 2
Maps too basic in appearance 2
Community
'Too many cheaters' could just be frustration at being new at the game and getting killed all the time. Or it can really be too many cheaters, but I don't think so. Some of it can be counted in the 'matchmaking system' bucket because that would be the fix, but I kept it separate because there were people who explicitly asked for it.
Abusive players 9
Lack of help for new players 3
Too many cheaters 7
Not enough teamwork/Communication 5
Lack of matchmaking based on skill 5
Team stacking 1
* Votekick/ban abuse 5
Finally, a breakdown:
Other 11.21%
Technical Issues 48.88%
Gameplay 4.04%
Mechanics 15.70%
Features 4.48%
Community 15.70%
I think it's clear that a lot of the negative reviews are for technical issues (pb is probably the biggest issue for most people). If that can be fixed at least more people would have a chance to play the game and hopefully like it long enough to stick around. Maybe they'll get their friends to play it too.
For community, probably a skill matching system would resolve almost all the issues. It would cut down on all the abuse and the feeling that everyone else is cheating because they're better than you.
Game mechanics has been discussed to death so I'm not going to go into that, but people did raise them. The one thing I will say though is that it's probably better just to REFINE the game than to make it radically different than what it is now. Nobody wants to keep re-learning how to play a game, especially if you've invested so many hours in playing a certain way. And no, I'm not sure some of the changes being proposed are really improving the game in any way, other than for a small group of players.
I'm also going to say that radically changing the game again will probably turn more people off, and the next survey for the next version we'll probably have a higher number of people who stop playing because they thought AAPG was the best (as some think beta/AA2 were).
Comments
I love this community!
You can learn more about how bad the game is from the positive reviews
Also no surprise community comes second with players like Bam lel
#Support Comp Mode
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN4YhM6jUB2MxVj8i3b9rhw
Should really adopt VAC bans tbh, even though it isnt perfect it's still far more effective than PB when it comes to keeping the vermin out. We all have, atleast those of us paying attention, seen that one suspicous guy, fresh account, doing really well. It just so happens to be a VAC ban on his account. Surely not a coincedence.
Pillowpants, when you have ACI LiveSecure running on your server ACI will kick players who have a VAC ban and it will do 'Cross-game kicks'.
in my opinion ACI LiveSecure is the only thing which helps at least a bit in order to exclude such players. unfortunately punkbuster is needed for LiveSecure to get 'into' the game.
I'm just wondering, why this still is not running on the official servers...
LeXy^
So I wished AAPG would switch to VAC as A/C so the issues also related to PB would all go away.
How many gamers have you heard losing connection to a game because of VAC system?
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Yeah same here.. I wonder if some people don't have full admin rights on their PC (its shared), or have some sort of a program that stops PB from running in the background, even if by mistake.. things like that, I know some people use fancy mobo's with built in hardware/drivers that are supposed to boost your internet speed (or whatever they do), then there are them silly game booster things that people swear by.. lots of things I guess can potentially bork it up.
Thing is, when it don't happen to you, it's kinda hard to know what the problem is for someone else.. which leaves you wondering 'why'.. I know that much.
I have also hardly had any problems but see constantly players getting kicked first time trying to connect to servers.
Have you been ever kicked cos of VAC from any other game?
It seems a really big issue, that lots of cheats are simply modifications from other games which runs the UE. This means they are frequently updated and can not be detected by the checksum (what is in our game the most common approach).
what i would like to see (and i know its a lot of work) is a integrated anti-cheat system (or better stealthing the game), to make it as difficult as possible to developers of this [TOS Violation] programms. I am thinking, among others, the following:
- Check during the game by md5 hash, whether critical files were modified.
- Check, if *.dll's, eg. gets hooked / injected by other rprogramms.
- Check, if values in the ram are still the values which belongs here.
- Locally create and analyzing a screenshots for textures which do not come from the game.
- Check, if the speed of movement, fire-rates, mouse (especially the 'shaking' of aimbots) match the pretended of the game.
- Ini-parameter should be edited only by the in-game settings (And of cause in this case we would need more pareameter in the setting - especially performance related parameter.)
- and and and...
But this is only my dream - and if it ever comes true... who knows...
LeXy^
ps. I know were a bit out of the tipic - btw.: really good job flubby and than's for your work!
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Not me personally, but the months I stopped playing aapg for a while and I was playing with some italian guys csgo, couple of them got kicked multiple times by a "vac authentication error"
I heard there's a solution for that, but since I never had that, I didn't even looked, but yea you can get kicked by vac as well, probably less than pb, but still.
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Very good points, but I believe the development of integrated cheat system is not really feasible for this game with so little numbers. But the Devs could pick up a A/C system that actually invests more resources into adjusting the system. And seeing PB with like 2 updates in lifetime of AAPG looks a bit weak to me.
Luckily we have also A/C organisations who invest time to catch some visual cheese outside of the pb system via pbss. Recently we had the discussion about streaming demorecs to ACI and the conclusion was that the game needs to send demorec hashes through punkbuster log system in order for ACI to accept them. If this could be done some blunt cheesers could also end up on master banlists
Don't think it's that easy for what I remember, one of those italian guys tried both things, but he couldn't join the competitive after, but maybe something changed by then
Wish it would be that easy with demorecs, but if they can't do nothing in videos with blatant aimbotters, like the one you posted on fb today or yesterday, don't know what would change with demos.
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It is just a programm where u have the possibility to it him what to do - either run some md5 checks (for detecting ini changes or programms) or to get ACI or PBBans on board.
Simply running PB is no big help...
LeXy^