Are killboxes the sole reason for playerbase decline?
Or is it one of many factors of losing players?
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I tend to doubt it. Raiders have the tools to beat kill boxes and using the suit advisor buff allows players to largely avoid them in the first place. Plus raiders always have the option to abandon an outpost they aren't enjoying with no penalty. So from my perspective it is largely a non-issue. Maybe a new player might be turned off by the experience though.
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base stagnation is more likely. we're seeing copycats left and right because builders don't have enough tools to really make unique individual concepts that are both effective and unique. playerbase decline is largely in part of the mentality of players
Historically players have targeted maps that declare themselves as "free" "loot" or "XP" rather than play an artisticly designed map, or a map that looks like it could be a challenge. the player base largely was populated by people who picked up the game during free play exposure. these types of players want things handed to them. Players like this then wander outside of the normal difficulty and encounter rooms they aren't prepared for before they unlocked their equipment's features fully. this gives "killboxes" a bad rap. raiders who want to gain resources are incentivized to loot the forsaken tombs, and to target the previously mentioned free style map and then to quit and move on as there is no penalty for leaving. players who prioritize rank climbing are incentivized to quit at 4 deaths when the reward for completion reaches 0 at higher ranks.
builders are incentivized to make a map as difficult as possible to get kills, but if it is made too challenging people will quit with 1 death or before even trying, harming the builder's income. builders are constantly badmouthed by raiders for
- blocking tombs
- trapping tombs
- doing anything that could result in a raider losing ammo
- making a "killbox" (more than 7 threats in a single room is what most seem to mark a killbox, mine is 15+)
- making it so tomb loot or trap loot falls in acid.
A builder could put 4 hours into a highly artistic base with good angles and thought put into it. get a 0 death run from a raider who refuses to give accolades because one of the tombs had a boltshot pointed at it and an acid block under it. so the builder gets heavily punished while the raider is fully rewarded because the raider just didn't like what the builder did. this puts builders at the raiders mercy, so instead of begging for accolades, builders just take their prestiege from kills.
this leads me back to base stagnation and the bad rap of "killboxes"
casual players don't understand that the skill floor is rather high and just jump into higher difficulty content without real thought so people see these rudimentery killboxes getting them profit, new players who don't understand die to them so they copy it. leading to seeing 10 of the same base over and over and over. on top of that, theres the 0 effort bases with a trap on every surface just because or just guards randomly played all over in the open with no walls to guard genmat. thats leading to heavy decline of interest to play because it doesn't feel good to play.
in short, builders need more options, and raiders need to have a "skill check" outpost that they are required to complete before being allowed to access a new difficulty.
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I don’t think this opinion will be popular, but I think the game is just too hard.
I enjoy the one hit kill, one hit death gameplay. But after watching hundreds of replays across dozens of bases… I think new players are just put off by the one hit death mechanic. I have seen countless new players with 0 nades and two ammo for their volt lancer bash their heads against my carefully crafted small/normal bases for months now.
I’m talking bases within an inch of going to Dangerous level. Harvey’s path manipulated just perfectly to avoid trap overlay penalties, guards placed at LOS that keeps their threat contribution low, layered traps upon layered traps. So you know… basic builder strategies :P
And these new players… they die and die and eventually rage quit. And why not… dying in one hit sucks when you are new and on a controller. Or when you lose your bolts into a block of lava (because you don’t know you can pickup through walls). Or when the floor suddenly disappears and you die wondering ######### happened.
You know what’s great about Mario? He dies in 2-3 hits. You know what’s great about DbD? You die in 2-3 hits. MYM is failing because the core gameplay is too hard for new players.
Yeah, as someone with 500 hours, I know you can survive more than one hit… shield nades, shield weapon, resurrection nade, coop rez, hell, even sword parries. But new players… all they know is they died out of nowhere, and now they have to start all over.
I love building hard bases. I don’t want raiders to have an easier time than they already do. But realistically, it’s too hard for casuals. And no matter how many weapons or side grades BHVR adds to the game, as long as it’s one hit death, only hardcore players will stick past level 10.
I would hate to lose one hit deaths as a core mechanic, but I would be okay with a Mario/DbD system of 2-3 hits if BHVR also gave me the tools as a builder to still make bases fun and difficult.
I would go so far as even adding a free rez at a tomb-like checkpoint that must be HRV pathable.
i don’t think BHVR is ready to make such a large change to MYM… but from all the replays I have seen, new players ARE ready for such a large change.
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I think part of the problem is that the difficulty rating doesn't account for the skill of the builder. A normal outpost built by someone who knows how all the traps interact is more dangerous than a brutal outpost built by someone who just puts boltshots on every surface, but the first will mostly be seen by new players and the second will mostly be seen by experienced players. I don't know if there's a good solution to it, though. Maybe require builders to master a normal outpost before they can build dangerous outposts?
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how would requiring the builder to master a normal before building dangerous improve the game? even bad bases are easily prestiged.
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The first month of the game was FREE on playstation. Then when dreadshore came out they had a free week. So of course there were more players when the game was free; 95% of PS players left after that first month. But 5% stayed behind, and that's 180,000 players.
I also think players have left because they get bored--there's not enough content to unlock, they get tired of the grind, and they got their building itch scratched. But many of those players return when new content comes out.
Hell, I imagine that before the devs allowed bases to be prestiged again and again, people got frustrated because their cool base couldn't be prestiged after 10. The people who have left over killboxes/frustrationetc will probably look back in again after a while, to see if things have proved.
The game is niche and the kind of people who would stick around for this kind of game are small. But IMO the longer the game is around and the more it improves with content/features, the more players it will get and keep. I predict that in 1-2 years this game will have way more players, and players that stick around. We're just in the early period. I look at DBD as the model they're using--start small, then just keep on adding and improving. As long as the die-hards stick around, it won't die.
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Definitely part of the problem. I normally craft Normal or Dangerous maps. And I have had new layers die 20 or 30 times on these bases. Most just give up after 5 or 6 though.
I think one solution is to open the calculations for base threat level to builders. Any good builder is going to build right up to the edge of their intended base difficulty. But we have no direct knowledge of where that borderline is at the moment, until we cross it.
By sharing the base calculations or difficulty numbers, builders can continue to build right up to the limit, but then we can give actual feedback about what the difficulty boundaries should be. Most likely, the required threat for normal difficulty should be lowered… but it’s impossible to say by how much, because we don’t know the calculations.
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sole reason, nope. It’s a number of things.
Before I get into things, we understand there are growing pains, & admittedly we’re eager for the game to hit its stride… much sooner than later.
- It’s a niche game- completely, so it’s going to be a smaller player base.
- Player community- for a smaller group there’s too much diversity of personal opinions of what’s ok or not.
- Kill boxes… they suck, but you learn to deal or abandon the map.
- Since the latest update it’s become too grindy and the building limitations have just sucked all the fun out of it.
- Way too much grinding and not enough synthite or parts for all the grinding.
Our fave way to play is to build bases, watch the videos from the raids, then raid the most interesting bases that pop up. However, it’s all not fun anymore. I thought we used to get parts & synthite for each advisor leveled up. We used to get parts & synthite for the daily. Having to level all 5 advisers just to get some parts & synthite isn’t enough. Also, I don’t see that we’re getting the minimum amount of synthite for each raid. We average about 10 maps per advisor. As we level that # increases. Compounded by blocked vaults (I don’t care how cool/fun your map is if you block the vault or it requires dying/swapping gear just to get it then you’re not getting accolades from us.), very little parts & synthite, unable to play all day to get what we need. For that reason we focus more on what we need rather than interesting maps. And we need to get through the maps fast. Sucks for raiders & builders.
Right now… I can’t afford to keep activating it k I’m1 map, continue to unlock mods & bio links, craft gear and/or buy a map. Even if I get 20+ kills on my build, I’m not getting 100 synthite, maybe 20.
Then there’s the building. I understand the need for limiting things… to an extent. But choosing blocks also determines props/decals now… it’s too limiting, making it difficult to give a special feel, create a unique vision. Maybe with more paint colors, but not so sure.
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Since the latest update it’s become too grindy and the building limitations have just sucked all the fun out of it.Honestly I feel the oppsite. Raiding each base that offers synth upon completion makes things feel a lot less grindy. Or at least, I end up with more synth for fewer raids. I also rarely raid without the boost, but that's because I've got over 30,000 in both red and blue resources.
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What if plating was available as an equipment choice, so players could give up one of their equipment slots to take an extra hit?
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My thoughts on this are.
1.You can trap the tombs but don't make the loot impossible to get. # acidcubes
2.When there are more sentinels and bombardiers...oohhhh here we go again with a 20+death rapsheet after.
3. Just make your maps unique and beatable. Yeah make them challenging too but don't make it an ammo and death cumsumption map. Balance it out...
The maps that I think are clumps of ruins are the ones who have toomuch AOE and Ammo eaters. Some maps I've played I had to use only my sword after and that's a tense accomplishment but the suffering that happened before...not pleasant.
So all in all make the maps a challenging and balanced than giving the finger to custodians.
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1- acid cubes are countered by an arc barrier, you can drop in, grab loot, and grapple back out.
2 - there are flash barrier which deflect lasers, and bombs.
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Imo the problem is that the arc barrier sometimes ( and I dislike it) seems the only option to beat things because of some killboxes. I do like killboxes, but some mechanics have to be changed/nerfed, and the arc barrier contemporarily with those change, perhaps the Plasmabow too. Not that everything must be viable always in every situation, but at least MUCH more than currently, especially for the 2 swords.
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alternatives to the arc barrier are to use the flash barrier or the phoenix pod instead, clearing an area and soaking the death to respawn, or putting down the barrier to clear the area and live.
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The Phoenix Pod should not count, you should be able to beat a base completely without dying, as difficult as it can be.
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if you can't beat a base without dying that's a you problem. you were still given other suggestions.
There is always normal
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This is a really good point. The build system with raiding was a great concept but it might be better to do a little seperation. Noone likes grinding for material by raiding so that you can build. It just puts building into something you spend less than an hour on for materials. It would be better if there was a base building overhaul, with your base getting better not by raiding other bases, but by building a base that deserves to be better. Overall, i think Behavior needs to sit down and read base building and dungeon core books for a while, in order to get an idea of how building outposts might be made better.
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As far as I'm concerned, it's because the bases I spent hours to make had only a few visits and didn't stay that long. (Even with prestige)
It felt like a waste of my time so I moved on.
About the kill boxes I simply leave immediately and block the creator. They aren't that much of a problem.
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