I played it. It lost population. I lost interest. Played qc for a bit. Quit marijuana - lost interest in games altogether.

About to become first time homeowner.

Thank you for sharing this with us, friend. Good luck! ;]

Happy for you, bud. Don't give up.

Visited a friend who smoked and had a few beers and I had zero urge. Just can't handle clutter in my life anymore.

Don't feel too bad. There are many other weak minded individuals you can become friends with.

What's the original video behind this?

There is an original video, its just not out yet. Only I have the copy ;] because i'm still editing it! Expect it maybe next week?

Yeah I remember calling these issues out and getting flamed from all the Reflex warriors, getting my threads banned on their forum etc. Ironic how they were so shortsighted that their blind love of anything Newborn decided on killed the game. The arena fps community actually _wanted_ them to succeed, fucking idiots.

People can't play any FPS with different movement than vq3 anyway...

Quake Champions

1. QC is so fucked that people don't even whine about that shit.
2. You don't have to play Anarki/Sorlag.
3. lolqc

did they hurt ur feelings

Oh god it's starting again! ;(

Similar experience, it literally made me swallow the pill on QL's changes because to them at least duel is sacred

Newborn is not to blame here, and esreality especially wasn't very welcoming of Reflex.

Reflex Warriors

Reflex Arena Warriors. aka RAW

It was funny seeing some of your criticisms come around and over a year later be widely adopted by the Reflex community. They did eventually change some things, like making the hitboxes cylinders rather than capsules to fix some rocket issues, but that was after I stopped playing.

I think a lot of valid feedback got lost in "cpma sucks lol", especially with your posts coming from a VQ3/VQL perspective. Reflex discussion has just always generated a lot of shit, and there was never a good source for the devs for figure out what was important. When it came to gameplay I never got the feeling they knew what they should have been doing.

Nobody had a blind love of what Newborn was doing at any point though, especially after the infamous fog update. The Reflex community was internally critical, and more and more as time went on. There are just a few blind monkeys on ESR who continue to sing praises of their dead game.

In the end all the cool kids went back to CPMA.

This is 100% accurate in my experience. The CPM players dipped their toes when Reflex came out, but largely stayed competitive in CPM instead because Reflex wasn't there yet. When CTF happened CPM players became somewhat active for a while, but annoying meta issues like lacking flag drag, general weapons/movement/netcode issues and performance issues had them returning to CPM again. So basically the CPM players played Reflex on the side, quietly waiting for it to finally become better than CPM, and it just never happened.

Newborn wasn't perfect by any means, but when he left the game lost any sense of direction. He was at least competent gameplay-wise, and understood the meta. Erectro and Shootermans, not so much. I also happen to know that the infamous fog issue was more to do with Erectro refusing the put the default value to something reasonable, so every map created before 420fogit was like a hotbox. Devs broke down to (highly valid) criticism and just cvarred fog. It actually could have been a useful feature and even a fun gimmick for gimmick maps, instead it was relegated to an always off cvar and wasted dev time. All because of bad default values.

Yep and yep.

I mean look I fall on the CPMA side of these discussions even though I really only started playing CPMA after I got sick of Reflex, but calling the CPMA community quiet is a bit inaccurate. They were quiet in the same way that the Reflex community is quiet here - a few like lolograde who like to get angry about video games you play on the computer.

Can you even drop guns in Reflex yet btw?

A sign that someone is angry/triggered is when they stop using reason and start name calling and insulting the other. So far, I see xerosawyer has been triggered. Maybe Profanum, too.

reflex never lived.

you are a god

Item timers were disabled in the competitive ruleset. But they're useful for people new to the genre which is why they make sense in the casual ruleset. Not to say they did not open pandora's box with the Lua system but cheaters are gonna cheat regardless and there are already server side anti-cheat mechanisms in Reflex.

I'm a shameless Reflex warrior. I want to see the game and the devs succeed. This is probably just me being a relentless supporter, but I'm still quite hopeful Reflex will have a larger, sustained popularity. If you look at the Steam reviews, it's got a much higher average review than many other games in the genre with the one constant critique being player base. Obviously there's not enough money for a huge marketing campaign but I think word of mouth and also some really killer movies will generate some hype.

Only after a year that was changed, it should have been done immediately. I think that reflex could have been a lot more than it is but I think the Devs stopped dreaming big a long time ago.

I know that it is easy to sit back and criticize, but I do really admire how good shooterman is at programming. I think that if everyone else there was on his level reflex would be amazing. I think if all the models were as good as the original rl and the enemy model, and they just used the CPMA formula it would be perfect .

Well, we can agree to disagree. I don't think the devs stopped dreaming big and certainly not a "long time ago". If you haven't already, listen to the post-launch interview they did with ArenaFPS. But it does bother me that people criticize the devs like they were id Software, triple A studio with huge budget and team of coders and artists. These are three guys who have made a game that for the most part looks like it could've been done by a triple A studio.

Who knows what they're planning for the future? I think most of the models and animations are well made. But the thing is that every update they did over the past couple years was pretty big. They covered A LOT of ground. Last July, they just added character customization, animation, and crouch: http://forums.reflexarena.com/index.php?/topic/3808-reflex-0450/

I think that you're right, and I'm being too harsh.
I want to see reflex succeed, but I stopped being hyped when that update came out. What made reflex stand out to me was that it hadn't compromised the gameplay like ql.

Reflex's gameplay is still being tweaked and not set in stone. It is likely that Ramagan's ruleset will be adopted for season 2. If that goes over well, maybe it'll stick. If not, then I assume changes will be made in season 3.

Just for sake of comparison, CPM's gameplay was "actively" developed over 7-8 years. Hoony started the mod in 1999 and the last update was in 2007. Over the course of those years, there were 5 or 6 different programmers working on CPMA (on and off) and at least 2 or 3 more who were involved in "design" elements. So basically 6-7 years (depending on how you want to count it) from inception to what CPM is today in terms of gameplay.

Also, CPM used to have a fairly different gameplay than it does today. The physics were wild (kind of like Reflex's a year or so ago) and the railgun did 100dmg. It's come a far way from where it was at inception.

To be fair, Reflex stands on the shoulders of its forebears. A lot of the design elements from CPM were used as a starting point for Reflex when it first started development. And since then the gameplay has undergone a lot of changes. Depending on your personal preference, these were either steps forward or backwards.

On the other hand, Reflex has had to go much further in a shorter amount of time than CPM did. The game was built from scratch and is vastly more advanced (from a technical perspective) than CPMA. And the gameplay is not (and should not be) 1:1 clone of CPM.

With the support of the community, it's safe to have confidence in these devs because history shows that they've delivered. Over and over again.

The physics in CPMA did not change much. Only really the fixed FPS change following the addition of ramps and doubles. CPMA's gameplay was a careful progression, it did not change particularly radically. Rail went to 80 as a part of the changes from the PM1 to the PM2 ruleset.

I'm particularly thinking about directional rocket splash physics. That must've been around 2005 (???). I remember it having a pretty big impact on the gameplay. Rockets were a bit more potent before the directional physics were added.

When was PM2 adopted?

More potent after. They didn't pop players up anything like as much before the change, a direct hit wouldn't really pop players up at all. PM2 was early 2000s, 2001-2002 sort of thing.

More potent after? That doesn't align with my memory of it. If only the Promode.org forums were still available for posterity's sake. I remember popups and airrockets were much easier prior to the directional physics.

So CPMA "starts" in 1999, goes 1.0 in 2000, PM2 in 2001-2002, and some small tweaks (like directional physics) in mid-2000s? Is that the correct timeline?

I think you're possibly confusing a test build that had more pop up with the final settings? Prior to this change knockback was like VQ3s but a bit stronger. Your timeline is about right, though I think the knockback change was quite a bit later. Gameplay was mostly gently tweaked after the PM2 changes. I can't remember exactly when the TDM settings tweaks were. I think the difference to Reflex is that I've not seen any sign they understand what direction they're going in nor do they seem to have any process.

So CPM's current gameplay is the result of 2-3 years of intense gameplay focused development followed by 3+ years of tweaks. And during that time, there was lots of complaining by the community, people saying the sky was falling, CPM devs have no clue what they're doing, and so forth. I fondly remember arQon ripping people apart in the forums for complaining about every little change made.

The point of my post that you originally replied to is that Reflex has come a longer distance, in a shorter length of time, with a smaller team.

Leading up to Reflex's 1.0, there was a lot more happening than solely gameplay updates. You should probably build the house before you start arranging the furniture. But the gameplay development was there from the start and always iterative, just like CPMA's. Prior to 1.0, there was a lot of test builds, experimental rulesets, and eventually the experimental plus rulesets. Only with 1.0 was there seemingly some jumps in gameplay changes that were not previously available for testing by the larger community.

I think what Newborn said HERE seems to be largely the case today as it was then wrt to Reflex's process.

Game development is always iterative. You do a first pass, you tweak some stuff, you implement some new things, you tweak everything again, etc. Gameplay is no exception to this. This is why the CPMA changelog is 4500 lines, split into 100+ releases that span a decade.

During that time, we also saw plenty of people who "haven't touched the game since X" because the developers "fucked it up" for "no reason".

This included things like making the physics no longer FPS-dependant, reducing the railgun damage to 80 and plenty of other things that were supposed to be the death of the game but overwhelmingly resulted in far better gameplay in the long run.

If you want an exact match for CPMA, just play CPMA. Reflex is going to be testing, tweaking and changing things to make a better game and that's not something you can just magically do in a single release.

I just don't see any signs Reflex's team understands gameplay well enough to make progress.

Assuming that were true does not mean the gameplay won't make progress anyhow simply from testing ideas with community input. It's well established empirically that groups tend to make better decisions than individuals, especially over the long run.

you do realise ramagan had to pirate an old version of the game to make anything happen, right? Your point would hold water if the reflex devs actually interacted with the community besides the occasional rant calling critics haters and the even rarer one line forum post.

To make a shitty analogy, you're praising the king for his generosity after the peasants stormed his castle and stole his food.

Praise to Ramagan for actually helping rather than being a shitposter. That's the difference.

Feel free to do whatever it is that makes you feel better. Sit on the threads, talking shit about devs (people you've never met), question their intentions, interests, abilities, etc.. Well done! You deserve credit for all the good work you're doing in trying to tear down other people's work!

groups tend to make better decisions than individuals

In general it's true, but there are 3 exceptions that had to be noted:
- most people usually prefer something they know and are familiar with, this comes from nature favoring individuals who use the knowledge already gained by humanity instead of inventing the wheel every team
- people are lazy they don't want changes because it requires some effort to adapt
- most of humanity greatest achievements are invented by individuals who don't follow others mindset or opinion. They have to be skeptic and believe that something can be improved or done better

Taking it to our ground, community of X will always want newly created Y to be like X because X superiority bring them together. If Y existed before and they were attracted to it they would opt to make X the Y-ish way. Devs have to break status quo in order to evolve and invent new things. Evolution doesn't always go in right direction, but it has to progress to get better in the long run. I mean it's better to do 3 bad changes and 4 good changes than not changing anything at all.

Where do you get these 3 exceptions?

1. I can't argue with that. And that's human nature. But that applies whether or not decisions are made by individuals or a collective. At least with a collective, you have a greater diversity of opinions and that should tend to be more willing to accept a diversity of possibilities. The strength of the collective is precisely because it's more willing to accept a broader range of possibilities and bring to bear on any situation a greater range of ideas.

2. Same as #1.

3. I can see the truth in that individual breakthroughs are important in the history of science, but Einstein would've never gotten to GR without Maxwell, Maxwell never to TD without Newton, Newton without Kepler, Kepler without Galileo, and so forth. Science is very much collective intelligence but there are individuals who can make remarkable leaps of their own mixed in there.

As for more material achievements (rather than intellectual) these are quite firmly in favor of the collective intelligence. The Moon landing, arguably the greatest human achievement yet, required that a lot of different problems be solved and a lot of engineering feats be accomplished. No single person did all that.

You've got good point but I'm not sure if collective intelligence is what it should be called. For me collective intelligence takes place when you ask 1000 individuals what is the height of the building in front of them (the same one) and if you take average of their estimation you get pretty accurate measure. What you described in case of science is the knowledge heritage and 'know how'.

You cannot apply this kind of collective intelligence to invent new thing. For instance you cannot take 1000 people and tell them to design space rocket all together just by starting the task. There needs to be hierarchy of responsibilities. People will have to be assigned to things they are good at and at the end the result comes from merging and composing of all sub products. It's not the collective work like 1000 people digging the whole.

Taking this to reflex, you cannot use collective intelligence to make game design decisions. How do you imagine that? You cannot just ask what they imagine main hitscan weapon and make an average of all parameters proposed by community. You usually have to design the gun yourself and verify with the community if it does work. If it is too good or too bad, but even knowing this next step is to invent change yourself and repeat the evaluation.

Collective intelligence used to measure a single thing is a very simple example of it but it extends much beyond that. Lots of people have invoked collective intelligence as the basis for not just predictive markets, large scale problems, but also the open source movement. The essence is that the collective tends to perform better than the individual and how does one capitalize on that?

In fact, this line of argument is why a lot of Silicon Valley companies have "flattened" their organizational structure: open floor plans, no one is the "boss", the company is employee owned, etc.. And this has it's roots in AT&T's Bell Labs in the 1st half of the 20th century where they hired a lot of talented individuals and put them together with very little oversight. From that one lab, there was quite a bit of innovation (like the transistor) which was not set upon the employees. No one told them "make the transistor" -- they collectively understood the problems of the vacuum tube and other mechanical means of processing information and sought out better solutions.

There's a book by Jon Gertner called "The Idea Factory" which is about Bell Labs. In it, he describes how the offices and hallways were designed to encourage spontaneous interactions. The hallways, for instance, were famously long and narrow and so people could not help but encounter each other constantly in the hallways. And these interactions were, arguably, the reason why collaborations or collective decisions seemed to "magically happen". The modern version of this is now the stereotypical open floor that Silicon Valley startup companies use. No cubicles, no walls, etc..

Your last paragraph presupposes that the hitscan weapon does not already exist. But it does! What I've discussed is that when it comes to adjusting the balance of all the existing gameplay mechanics, the collective intelligence will almost surely beat individual intelligence. More generally, though, you don't start like that. No jumps into the midst of a problem blindly. If we're talking about AFPS players with more than 30mins of game experience, it's safe to assume most (if not all) recognize the distinction between hitscan and non-hitscan.

Yeah, the problem is when people buy into these ideas and think by adopting it cargo cult style they will magically improve their organization (also with the motivation of cost cutting on space) while making their work space less comfortable, with much more distraction, less privacy, higher blood pressure, higher burnout, etc.

Not everyone enjoys these environments. There's a time for interaction, and there is a time to knuckle down and do work in a solitary fashion where one can focus without the stress of being surrounded by people. That's why I think both types of space are needed.

That's true. I agree. But the reason these things have become trendy is because of the benefits found. Strict hierarchical structures have largely been abandoned and "flatter" organizational structures have been adopted, particularly in industries where creative solutions are useful (in simple manufacturing where the process doesn't change and it's all about "keeping it going" does strict hierarchical structures still largely remain). To what extent the "flattening" of organizational structures be taken and still reap benefits is another question.

I didn't mean to suggest Reflex devs should turn over the keys to the car. I would still prefer they make the final decision whether to implement suggestions or not. But my original point (wherever that was) is that saying community involvement is a negative thing because only the smart individual is capable of making smart decisions is not true.

there must've been changes post 2006 aswell. i distincly remember stuff like:
-shaft damage changing around
-rail reload time changing (or atleast something like ruleset promode with 1200ms reload time becoming standard, and fastrail becoming votable)
edit: maybe it was something like introducing pmc and cpm as rulesets and making the cpm one standard thats kind of making me remember things differently

Yes, there were changes after that. It was always having small tweaks in various areas.

And the gameplay is not (and should not be) 1:1 clone of CPM.

I Wouldn't mind that. I just like CPMA a lot though.

history shows that they've delivered. Over and over again.

I know that I cant prove it because I didn't archive the page, but, I know for a fact that on their site, before they did a kick-starter or anything, it said "no dumbing down, no compromises!" on one of the bullet points. So, this isn't really true at all. I did like the netcode update, though, that was really impressive. They also didn't deliver on any of the weapon models aside from the stuff they had since before the kick-starter, and they didn't ever make the human character. They also failed to deliver on the concept levels that actually had AAA graphics in the drawings.

I know you'll say that, its too much, but, the development energy stopped going into those things, and went into the minimalist style guns. I wouldn't say that they failed if they didn't give up on it.

that was their pitch for the kickstarter. which failed. Unfortunately they made the mistake of pricing the actual cost, not the "oh fuck better look for investors", or ship half a game like other KS ventures..

Then, with half an engine and little money, they have to drastically rescope it if they want to ship anything.

Art assets are time intensive and expensive. They cannot afford to do textures. So the artsyle changes.

There's a clear x -> y -> z here, why try and paint them as breaking their word? The Kickstarter failed. Move on.

That said, could they re-add support for textures and basically crowd source them? Maybe. Would mess with their memory budget though, and probably break performance. And introduce bugs. Which is all time they could be spending on improving the game they have.

It's a sad thought, but I do wonder if at this point, the only way to grow Reflex is to go F2P

There's a clear x -> y -> z here

There isnt at all, this post is being disingenuous. It wasn't for a while that the game stopped operating on the idea that they would try and make it like the kick-starter. I know those promises were too high for them, but they are still valid examples of the devs failing to deliver.

Aside from the graphics promises, which, you cant say that they didn't fail to deliver, The gameplay promises were broken, and it wasn't resolved for over a year, is really the egregious one; because reflex was launched on the hype that it wouldn't dumb itself down in the way that QL did; in fact the entire reason it sold so much was because of QL players who wanted to switch; because QL made such a bad update; and then reflex just made an even worse update because at least to QL devs; duel is sacred.

My complaint is that they did not try enough gameplay wise.

This was the perfect opportunity to try out new stuff, and we got promises of said new stuff, but all we got was a stake launcher that is not really in the game, save for the experimental gameplay mode.

I think they did try and the evidence indicates they are going to continue working on the gameplay.

CPM's gameplay development spanned 5-6 years with a lot of incremental steps to get from crazy rocket popups and 100dmg RG to what it is today. CPMA's "1.0 Launch" was in 2000. They continued making gameplay tweaks for 5 years. Knowing what we know now, would it have been correct to criticize the CPMA team for "not trying enough" back in 2000?

As for more dramatic experimentation, I'd like to see that too and maybe it'll happen. It's undeniable that Reflex Arena is a great platform -- with all it's features and potential. There's a lot of opportunity there. I think there are more reasons to be optimistic than pessimistic about it. The more the community rallies around the Reflex Arena platform and supporting it with tournaments, movies, maps, forum participation, etc., the greater the platform will become.

The CPMA team did crazy experimental stuff before 1.0 as well.
The 'evidence' doesn't show me they are still working on gameplay, they didn't try much in the beta too (which is the perfect time to experiment).

CPMA's gameplay (including all gameplay modes) didn't just span 5-6 years, changes were made more recent than that (until the disappearance of the devs).

Development has also picked up again.

I wonder if you have a different definition of "evidence". They made gameplay changes in 1.0 (and many, many times before) and they are going to make gameplay changes in 1.2. How is that not evidence?

If they weren't trying, one would expect less effort being put into it. They could've said, "Sorry, we're not interested in changing anything. The gameplay is final."

Also, based on some threads in the testers forums, it is clear they were considering some radical changes to Reflex gameplay. I won't go into details here since those are not supposed to be public. But saying that the Reflex devs never tested and considered any experimental changes is not born out by the evidence. The truth is quite obviously that they did.

If it's okay for CPMA to make gameplay changes over the course of all those years, why is it that you think Reflex devs need to have everything figured out already? CPMA went 1.0 with 100dmg rail, FPS dependent physics, default Q3 netcode, etc.. Does that mean there was no evidence that CPMA devs we're "not trying enough"?

They made gameplay changes in 1.0

They copypasted the user made "league ruleset" after I pointed out on the forums nobody had played their official ruleset (which originally shipped with the matchmaking update) for months. They themselves haven't made any gameplay decisions in roughly a year.

Shooter is a god tier coder for making the Reflex engine and its entire featureset by himself and should get all the credit he deserves for that. I don't really look at art, but Reflex has never looked ugly to me so electro did a good job at that as well. But you cannot credit them with the gameplay at this point (if you ask me, you wouldn't want to be credited with the current comp ruleset anyway...)

I wish they'd start experimenting with gameplay. They have nothing left to lose at this point. Just doing small tweaks to existing weapons or armor or speeds or anything is blah, it will have no impact. They need to do real changes. I thought that was the whole point of Reflex but it was just a lie.

except for the couple hundred players that are the only people playing it. if you drive the remaining die hards away it will be fucked for good

Terifire didn't make that distinction. He said they have not tried. Previously you said they don't care. Those are simply not true statements. They tried iterative gameplay changes from the start. They've listened to the community suggestions. There has been dozens of updates with gameplay changes. You can't square this withthe "they don't care"/"they don't try" nonsense

What is your point with posting? It's clearly not to encourage support for Reflex. It's clearly not to provide constructive criticism. It's clearly not for any positive reason for Reflex, the devs, or the community. You really think the devs will read your comments about them not trying or not caring and that'll help accomplish whatever it is you are trying to accomplish????

We have a saying in the US (maybe something similar in Netherlands): if you don't have anything good or constructive to say, why say it? It only serves to make you feel better at the expense of others.

The message in each of our posts are quite obvious, we're disappointed with the lack of experimental gameplay stuff that makes the game stand out as something new and different, what the devs (or anyone reading it) can take away from that is that it might be good to bring those new gameplay changes (as was promised). And I do not mean tweaking ic knockback/damage/firerate or whatever, I'm talking about new mechanics, new weapons like the stake launcher, that iirc was in de kickstarter trailer?

You seem to think we are only in this to talk shit or tear down Reflex, but that's not what we're doing at all. The inability to see it as anything else really is a problem on YOUR end. Anything we say or do instantly becomes "you're just haters".

The goalposts have moved since the last back and forth we've had about Reflex. I read through the previous thread (located HERE) and found no instances where you said your main concern/disappointment was the lack of new mechanics and not refinement of the existing gameplay ruleset. Feel free to look through the thread and let me know if I'm mistaken. If not, then either something has changed in your opinion towards Reflex or you did not articulate your opinions clearly enough last time.

There's no rational way to take it as constructive or positive in any way. It boggles the mind that you think you're somehow being constructive. You and Pill are going out of your way to criticize the Reflex devs. More than that, no where in your words do you sound remotely positive about Reflex's future. It's all defeatist.

Let's assume you are 100% correct. The devs do not understand gameplay, they have no interest in new mechanics or trying anything new, they do not try enough or care enough to make Reflex a better game, then why should anyone support/play Reflex?

Here's a very simple metric: If these posts are getting plussed by xerosawyer, who has very little love for Reflex (to put it mildly), then what does that say about the content of these posts?

In the other post I made other points that concerned me, in this post I mention other things, so I'm not sure why you say you can't find these opinions of mine on another forum post. My posts on that thread are not a full list of all I think is wrong with Reflex, just some stuff that came up in that discussion, you should look for the points I'm making concerning THIS discussion in THIS thread.

My opinion has not changed, I'm just expressing different points/concerns I have/had. My opinion on Reflex is not condensed to a few forums posts you can quote/refer to.

Yes, I am criticizing the devs (not sure what you mean with going out of my way), but I am explaining why I am doing so, again, if you can't take anything from what I am saying the fault really isn't with me, but with your understanding of it. I'll make what I want from the devs short for you; start experimenting with gameplay as you promised.

Let's assume you are 100% correct. The devs do not understand gameplay, they have no interest in new mechanics or trying anything new, they do not try enough or care enough to make Reflex a better game, then why should anyone support/play Reflex?

In that case, people shouldn't.

Here's a very simple metric: If these posts are getting plussed by xerosawyer, who has very little love for Reflex (to put it mildly), then what does that say about the content of these posts?

That's a simple metric indeed, and also a nonsense one. Why should someone plussing posts have anything to do with the credence of the posts? Do the arguments or points in them become less valid or based in reality because a person has decided to plus them, completely outside of the control of the poster?

In that case, people shouldn't.

And here we go, Terifire. Thank you for admitting that. You are not posting what you are for the benefit of Reflex. You're saying, quite clearly, do not play Reflex. Do not support Reflex. I think that's the clearest it's going to get that you're shitposting about Reflex.

That's a simple metric indeed, and also a nonsense one. Why should someone plussing posts have anything to do with the credence of the posts? Do the arguments or points in them become less valid or based in reality because a person has decided to plus them, completely outside of the control of the poster?

It's certainly fallacious, I admit that. It's ad hominem. But if what you're saying is not shitposting about Reflex, it's a wonder why someone who very openly admits to disliking Reflex is enjoying your posts about Reflex.

Are you serious? You give me a hypothetical situation where the devs are incompetent, unwilling, and uncaring, in other words want to make NO progress/improvement on the game at all. You then ask me if that's a game people should/want to support, and when I say no you take that as me saying this is the case for Reflex? You realize you are putting words in my mouth right? That is not MY opinion, but the hypothetical situation you presented. Just because you preface the question with "Let's say you are 100% correct" does not mean that the following is actually my opinion.

If that is actually me 'admitting', then that is you admitting that the hypothetical situation you describe is actually the current situation for Reflex.

You are not posting what you are for the benefit of Reflex. You're saying, quite clearly, do not play Reflex. Do not support Reflex. I think that's the clearest it's going to get that you're shitposting about Reflex.

I am NOT saying don't play Reflex, if people want to play Reflex go ahead. Same goes for any game really, why would I be opposed to people playing Reflex? How is making maps for the game (that are quite well liked) and making fragmovies with a decent amount of views not supporting the game? How am I telling people to not support Reflex? How is anything I'm doing shitposting? You're the one posting fallacious metrics...

The opinions I gave/give are the reasons I went back to playing CPM, which I prefer.

I have a question for you...

Let's assume the devs do not understand gameplay, they have no interest in new mechanics or trying anything new, they do not try enough or care enough to make Reflex a better game, then why should anyone support/play Reflex?

Are you serious? You give me a hypothetical situation where the devs are incompetent, unwilling, and uncaring, in other words want to make NO progress/improvement on the game at all.

This is not hypothetical. You've said throughout this thread, clear for everyone to see, that 1) the devs have not tried with the gameplay and do not care about it (this is Pill's argument but you've aligned yourself with Pill's opinions multiple times here by replying to replies of mine to his), 2) they do not understand gameplay design well enough to make progress, 3) they have shown no interest in experimenting, and 4) the time to experiment has passed. This is a very bleak picture of Reflex's devs you've painted across each of your posts.

Can you tell me which of the 4 points above I am totally wrong about?

I am NOT saying don't play Reflex, if people want to play Reflex go ahead. Same goes for any game really, why would I be opposed to people playing Reflex? How is making maps for the game (that are quite well liked) and making fragmovies with a decent amount of views not supporting the game? How am I telling people to not support Reflex? How is anything I'm doing shitposting? You're the one posting fallacious metrics...

You enjoyed Reflex previously. I absolutely believe that. But your attitude has clearly changed and for some reason you want to spend some effort replying to me anytime I say something positive about Reflex on ESR and try to encourage people to play and support it. Invariably, there's going to Pill, Terifire, Xerosawyer here to say, "well, it's fucked up and they're not going to fix it." That basically sums up my perspective on this whole shitshow you keep parading on about.

You are wrong about points 1, 2, and 4.

1) Pills' opinions are his own, not mine, I have not said that they don't care.

2) I have said that I wouldn't know if they understand gameplay design, but they have showed a lack of vision by delegating that task to the community.

4) The time to experiment never passes, but people might have been more accepting of big changes while the game was still in alpha/beta.

I am also not replying to you 'everytime you say something positive about Reflex'. I also still enjoy Reflex occasionally, especially race when I just want to hop around and chill with some music. I also never go around saying "it's fucked up they're not going to fix it", stop attributing that to me.

1) You did say they did not try. But you see I'm at a disadvantage because I'm replying to you, Pill, ix, and others in this thread. It's because I said some positive things about Reflex. Those cannot go unrebutted apparently.

2) What does that mean? Vision? Is that not the same? I might have a "vision" of a grand mansion that I want to live in some day. But how can I imagine that "vision" without having some basic understanding of where I want the doors, walls, furniture, etc., to be?

4) So chances are low, huh?

It definitely seems like it. I've replied to like 12 different replies to you about Reflex. In the past couple months, I've replied in a few other threads about various things, but anytime I say something about Reflex, I know I'll get a reply from you, Pill, or someone else with a laundry list of criticisms and complaints.

1) You did say they did not try. But you see I'm at a disadvantage because I'm replying to you, Pill, ix, and others in this thread. It's because I said some positive things about Reflex. Those cannot go unrebutted apparently.

I did say that, and meant it. You're not replying to Pill, ix, or others right now, I'm not sure how that's relevant.

2) An idea of what they want gameplay wise, right now it's mostly done by the community. It's the communities mansion, and everyone is trying to get their own room. It's not the devs mansion.

4) Yes, chances are lower of people accepting big changes now the game is out of beta.

It definitely seems like it. I've replied to like 12 different replies to you about Reflex. In the past couple months, I've replied in a few other threads about various things, but anytime I say something about Reflex, I know I'll get a reply from you, Pill, or someone else with a laundry list of criticisms and complaints.

So everything we say is just to ruin your day?

1) Why is it that you're replying on Pill's behalf about things? This is a problem because it makes it unclear where your opinion ends and his starts.

2) Right now but not always so. Besides, it's silly to argue against community input. The collective intelligence of a community vastly outweighs that of individuals. Even Steve Jobs, the king of "vision", was smart enough to do market analysis and figure out what people like or do not like.

There's obviously a sweet spot between letting the community do everything and the devs do everything with no community input. Historically, over all the updates, the majority of the gameplay tweaks were introduced as iterative changes by devs through the Experimental (not Exp Plus) ruleset. Only lately have gameplay ideas come more from the community. But again, I do not see any problem with that. I don't see it as lazy (the devs are surely not lazy individuals, are they?), I don't see it as not caring (you say you think they care).

If you claim to know what is good or not, then why would community input be a bad thing? I know you'll say "lack of evidence of their vision for the game". But the vision for the game, at least publicly, has always been on a CPM successor and iterative gameplay design. Only once have I seen any indication of a change in that vision to something more radical.

4) Just like after CPMA 1.0. Sucks that CPMA stuck with the FPS-dependent physics, 100dmg rail, etc.... kappa.

1) I am NOT replying on Pills' behalf, where do you get this from?

2) For far too long already, at least since exp+.
Your Steve Jobs analogy is faulty, this isn't a case of market research, but having your end-users directly design your product.

Having the community figure out a ruleset means your 'vision' is all over the place, as everyone has their own idea of the ideal game. I'm not saying they don't care, I'm saying this shows a lack of vision, and possibly a lack of understanding, or both, if they keep delegating this tot he community.

Saying the vision is for it to be a successor is very vague still.

"Collective" intelligence is not always better than design by a small team. In fact I have yet to see a good game designed by a "collective intelligence".

I don't claim to know what is good or not gameplay wise, I am questioning their design methods (or lack thereof).

4) What exactly is your point with this? Did I say CPMA didn't change (radically) after 1.0? Many people WERE against the changes you name (physics/raildamage etc) and many people DID stop playing because of it.

1) I'm referring to the comments between 53 and 76. You and Pill alternated in responding to a single string of comments. It certainly obscures where you two agree/disagree without seeing you argue each other about these points. Was there something I said that you were responding to that Pill disagreed with but responded to in his comment? That's the problem that's being created by that back and forth.

2) No, designing a game would mean a lot more than just adjusting values/weights of existing mechanics. Did the community design strafe jumping, triple jumping, the mechanics of how a rocket or grenade, ion cannon or bolt rifle works? Of course not. Whatever the community made rulesets are, they do not transcend the framework established by the devs (and basically all of Quake history).

You're acting like the community has made the gameplay single-handedly.

4) So CPMA can make experimental changes well after 1.0. The best time to do that, according to you, would be before 1.0. But after 1.0, it's okay -- as long as it turns out well in the end. Whether the devs experimented before or after 1.0 is not really a big deal.

The devs could feasibly create a new playlist for whatever new ruleset or mechanics they might imagine. What if they come up with a totally new mode similar to NTF. It doesn't have to replace the current competitive/casual rulesets altogether. They create it. Some players enjoy and play, others do not but still have their existing rulesets to play. I just don't see this as a crisis or mistake. They can surely experiment all they want with the gameplay into perpetuity without risking anything by giving people options.

On one side, you suggest that they need a vision and that requires top-down decisions foisted upon the community. But on the other side, if people don't want to play it, they'll quit. Which is exactly what happened with CPMA's infamous ammo update. But the difference here, with Reflex, is that a coherent system is in place to allow for a wide range of experimentation without completely obliterating your player base like the CPMA ammo update did.

1) I didn't even see his comments, I just see that I have a new reply, click it, and it shows me your messages. I don't get notifications of Pills replies. On top of that I see no reason to assume we share the same opinion.

2) I said they made up the current gameplay ruleset, I did not claim they invented strafejumping. But the only gameplay elements that get changed are the ruleset values, which is something I'm disappointed in as I have pointed out.

4) So CPMA can make experimental changes well after 1.0. The best time to do that, according to you, would be before 1.0. But after 1.0, it's okay -- as long as it turns out well in the end. Whether the devs experimented before or after 1.0 is not really a big deal.

According to me, you risk losing a larger part of the player base if you make drastic gameplay changes after the game has been released. I mean, people stopped playing Clan Arena when starting health/armor changed, and these are pretty tame changes.

Maybe there is a coherent system in place for a wide range of experimentation, but that system is pretty useless if it doesn't get used.

Apparently, if you have no vision, people quit as well because they lose faith in the developers.

NTF in Reflex would be sick

2) Then let's just be clear to what extent the community is designing the game. They're twiddling knobs, not designing the machine itself.

4) Well, CPMA dev team had apparently vision and the secret formula and they still managed to nearly kill the game with a single update. Maybe that update was tested among a small group of veteran players but it certainly had zero community support when it was released.

2) You could say the devs didn't design much of the games themself... twiddling knobs is all we've seen for a long time.

4) Yeah correct, it wasn't a good decision IMO, I never said the CPMA devs were faultless though, did I? I'm not sure how them making mistakes/bad choices is in any way an argument against the points I'm making.

2) Same could be said of CPMA... But does that mean CPMA is shit because it didn't invent strafe jumping, rocket launchers, and so forth?

4) Agreed. No one is faultless and bad decisions are going to be made whether your Steve Jobs or one of the Trailer Park Boys. The key is whether you're able to recognize it's a bad idea and make changes. So far, the Reflex devs have not finalized the gameplay. There have been many, many gameplay changes. Some of them were their ideas, some the community's ideas. But they have not finalized anything and continue trial and error, trying to find the best of all possible worlds.

2) Am I saying Reflex is shit? Am I saying CPMA is some golden standard? Also CPMA dev stalled due to the devs disappearing for whatever reasons they had.

4) The game was in a bad place gameplay design wise (community deciding on the ruleset) at the time of release though, that is a very trouble omen. I am not seeing any improvement since then.

2) I'm not sure what you're saying. So the devs don't create games either? Okay, I agree that's true in a sense. It's all a rip off. No one has had an original idea since the dawn of man.

4) You wouldn't see any change since 1.0 since there has been no change. Is change expected? Yes. Soon? Yes.

Also, I gotta say this looks comical. People come to this thread and they will see this:

Terifire: 2)... 4)...
Lolograde: 2)... 4)...
Terifire: 2)... 4)...

Sorry for forcing this format but it works especially well at my work when I'm dealing with 10 different topics in an email.

tbh, i think you guys are arguing over something that is largely irrelevant to how reflex did as a whole - in the sense that the differences between one AFPS and another (which between cpm and reflex are fairly minor, even though to the trained eye they have a discernable degree of influence on the gameplay) are concerns only for the tiny hardcore left playing these games.

the game needed to draw new blood into the genre - the problem stems from the fact that they werent able to do that - and im not sure the knockback value on weapon x or y had anything to do with it.

the game just didn't offer the features and content that it needed to draw the semi competitive 'party with friends' type fps players. had these types of groups been able to enjoy reflex i think that the game would be doing much better. there would always be balance discussions and changes etc but the problem with reflex's lack of playerbase goes far beyond what you guys are arguing about ^^

I agree and I also agree with a lot of your arguments for other types of team modes beside the old standards (TDM, CTF, etc.). But I'm not pessimistic about those things happening. I think it's more likely than not.

That's all this boils down to: Reasons to be optimistic versus reasons to be pessimistic.

I am especially not interested in being both pessimistic and defeatist about it. "The game is ded, devs are ded/dumb/incompetent, why support the game?" That sort of line of arguing is completely pointless and valueless, imo.

You don't think the lack of gameplay changes/experimentation has anything to do with that?

I don't understand your point.

Personally, I think experimental and crazy ideas etc were likely not to be particularly successful. I mean alot of people give lip service to the notion that more originality would have served the game well, but most of the complaints I've seen have been about making the game more cpm like. The small existing difference is enough to tilt people and what do they do - they retreat back into the familiar and play cpm again. Xonotic has alot of interesting weapon concepts and twists etc but it hasn't really helped it much has it?

I personally think the core reflex gameplay is fairly solid (the weapons and the movement) its just the arena framework that holds it back.

To me the difference between Reflex and CPM is quite large. You seem to think people get tilted and retreat back into the familiar, do you really see this as the only reason people go back to CPM?

Xonotic does have some interesting weapon concepts! But I wouldn't say the lack of succes of one game is enough evidence that experimenting is not a good idea, or even that it's a bad idea.

But I'd say that one thing all these games have in common is that they don't have a large playerbase, so something has to change no?

yeah to a veteran of the genre the differences might be quite big, but for someone new to the genre they are pretty small.

im not against experimentation, but i dont think it will yield particularly big results in terms of playerbase. i think the weaponset and combat are generally pretty solid in afps games for the most part, be it vq3, cpm or reflex.

i think the problem is a genre accessibility problem at this point, and the lack of really compelling teamplay options. sadly, i think that for teamplay, traditional arena mechanics dont really work on multiple levels. this is where i think experimentation should be undertaken. packaging and designing a truly good teammode would go a long way to fix the inherent problems in the states of all these games imo.

already weve seen that even a fairly basic and unoriginal casual teammode can sustain an afps game for a long time - NTF with CPM and Bomb in warsow being the prime examples. these modes were nothing special and had their own issues ofcourse but they did see alot of play, relatively speaking.

I don't really see how its fair to compare the CPMA development timeline(a free mod created by hobbyists) with reflex.

100% agree

"The truth is quite obviously that they did."

... If you've read the supersecret forums.

I'm talking about the experimental stuff, not the tweaking of knockback or damage values or whatever.

I'll praise the game for making certain (mechanical) changes such as triple/x amount jumps, changing the spawnweapon and the melee weapon. But that's about the extent of 'experimental' stuff.

You're the one making claims about the devs. No one came to you asking you to praise Reflex. You're making the decision, of your own accord, to come to post the claim that the devs don't try, don't care, don't understand, etc..

On the surface, that's plainly dishonest because it's not factual. You don't recognize the efforts they've made nor do you know what they are thinking. Unless you're telepathic, all you have for evidence of your claims is what has happened and the evidence does not support your case.

I'll ask again: Would it be right to criticize the CPMA team for not trying after CPMA went 1.0 in 2000? Your whole case is predicated on this notion that Reflex will NOT improve. Did CPMA improve after 2000? Were lessons learned along the way? Or did Hoony go from CPMA 0.1 to 1.43 in 1 day because there's some magic, secret formula?

My evidence is in lack of experimentation despite the promises. Nowhere in my post do I say I don't recognize the efforts they made, nor do I claim to know what they are thinking.

I'm just saying the efforts were not in bringing the big changes that were talked about in the earlier days, the experiments.

What they are thinking is irrelevant. Happy, nice, progressive thoughts don't get me much, should I praise them for thinking nice things? I'll judge them by their actions, and thus far I haven't seen many progressive actions gameplay wise.

I'll ask again: Would it be right to criticize the CPMA team for not trying after CPMA went 1.0 in 2000? Your whole case is predicated on this notion that Reflex will NOT improve.

Well, no.. my case is that they did not make enough gameplay changes to make the game stand out as something new, something different. The changes they did make, made the game less enjoyable for me than CPM. I do think they missed an opportunity in trying out more experimental stuff now that it's out of beta.

Did CPMA improve after 2000? Were lessons learned along the way? Or did Hoony go from CPMA 0.1 to 1.43 in 1 day because there's some magic, secret formula?

It sure did! CPMA improved because there was a clear vision from the devs, though that vision changed over time. Gameplay design decisions were made after lots of discussing, and tearing apart ideas until they were either demolished, or still standing strong. Either way there were always people with a clear vision of what they wanted for the game. Meanwhile in Reflex the devs released a build allowing people to define their own gameplay set, which was used in a league and ultimately adopted as the official gameplay ruleset. This 'letting the community figure out the gameplay ruleset' was evidence for me of a lack of vision from the devs.

To answer your last question, no, it did not go from cpma 0.1 to 1.43 in 1 day because of some magic, secret formula (why are you even asking this?) but yes, there is a formula for gameplay design.

Are these promises from the KS or post-KS? Show me evidence of these promises of experimentation. I see in the KS launch video, it says nothing about experimentation. Here's a list of things I see in the KS video:

1. Classic arena gameplay
2. Various concept art
3. In-game multiplayer map editor
4. Multiplayer spectating
5. Server-side replays
6. Character concept art (hostile and friendly)
7. Built-in replay editor
8. Movement training and tutorials
9. 10+ game modes
10. Matchmaking
11. Stats & Rankings
12. Regional Ladders
13. Tournament Hosting
14. LAN Support
15. Dedicated Servers
16. Multiplayer PVE
17. Singleplayer
18. Customizable HUD
19. Advanced spectator features
20. Steam integration
21. Responsive input
22. Clans

Despite the KS failing, they accomplished almost ALL of those with a few exceptions: 2, 6, 13, 16/17 (unless you count bots), and 22.

From the KS days, Reflex was branded as a "classic" AFPS game. If your problem is that they didn't try anything "new", surely you must have been triggered by the word "classic" right from the start.

I looked back through the Kickstarter thread to be sure and I do not see anywhere that Newborn "promised" new mechanics to Reflex. Rather, all his comments seem to indicate that it's something like CPM's spiritual successor.

Exactly what are you expecting me to deliver? A signed letter stating all of the experimental stuff signed by Newborn sealed with a wax seal of his House?

This is stuff that was talked about on discord, be it in private or just in any of the public discord channels, I didn't write this shit down, it just came up in normal conversation, I didn't expect I'd need it years later to discuss the game with someone on esreality...

If you don't accept any of that as 'evidence' then so be it, this isn't some kind of court of law.

Truth is much of the planned experimental stuff has not been implemented, and the game despite its differences does not feel like anything new or much different to me.Stuff like regional ladders, tournament hosting, various concept art and advanced spectator features are nice QoL things to have, but are not gonna be what will make me play the game.

The evidence of this is in the lack of new gameplay mechanics/weapons/whatever in Reflex.

You've chosen of your own volition to reply to me. I did not send you a PM saying please reply to my comment and make claims about promises and experimental changes and so forth. YOU are the one making those claims. The onus is on YOU, not me.

And now when I call you on it, it's like, "well, I don't have any evidence immediately available... this was all on Discord or private conversations. Just take my word for it." Excuse my language, but that's utter bullshit, Terifire. It's utter bullshit. You know it. I know it. Everyone who has the remotest interest in following this back and forth can see it.

Furthermore, what kind of "promise" is made like that? A promise made in private or during unofficial conversation over Discord?

You're an idiot.

:-)

Again, how could I have known I had to prove myself to a zealot on esreality years later? Do you really expect all discord conversations to be documented and legally signed in the presence of a notary?

Furthermore, what kind of "promise" is made like that? A promise made in private or during unofficial conversation over Discord?

Do you honestly think it's weird for this thing to have come up in such discussions? What are your expectations here? They seem rather unrealistic.

I think it's weird that a privately made or unofficial promise is a major problem. Typically those sorts of things have less weight. How do you know they were serious? The point at which it gets serious is when it's public and official. There is nothing public or official, as far as I can find, about experimentation. From the KS onward, the public statements have always been that the design is a successor to CPM. I've never seen anything from Newborn, shooter, or the other devs promising the gameplay would go in a different direction.

The only thing I can think of are some ideas floated in the non-public testers forum would've radically changed the game (and genre, imo).Those were not public and are not supposed to be. But I am happy to PM you about it if you really do not know what I am talking about.

If you told me in private you'd give me $1,000 and then you don't, how much do you think everyone else will care when I complain that you didn't give me $1,000? Do you think people are going to believe me when I say Terifire promised me $1,000?

Would you still trust me the next time I told you I'd give you $1,000?

I wouldn't have trusted you the first time. Lol...

...

To be completely fair, if one of the devs told me that something was happening and they "promised", I'd take their word for it too. But the problem here is that they did not tell everyone. Only I would be disappointed. They're not nearly as obliged to deliver when the promise is made to 1 person rather than their entire player base.

IMO, a broken promise like that, in this sort of situation, would only be a big problem if it was publicly, officially announced. Like the roadmap, for instance, has a few features that are not yet in the game -- movers/triggers, liquid physics, etc.. I have confidence they'll show up at some point but I aml disappointed a bit that they have not happened yet. Especially movers/triggers.

And I think that's why the public roadmaps have ended. The devs need flexibility when they cannot deliver X by a certain date. They made themselves this rigid schedule and when things change, it invariably ends up disappointing someone.

Reflex has broken your brain.

What they are thinking is irrelevant. Happy, nice, progressive thoughts don't get me much, should I praise them for thinking nice things? I'll judge them by their actions, and thus far I haven't seen many progressive actions gameplay wise.

What they are thinking is absolutely relevant because you're making these claims about their intentions. How can you say they "don't care" or "don't try" and then say what they're thinking is irrelevant? Since when is "caring" and "trying" independent to thinking? Does your toaster "care" about toasting bread? Does it "try" to toast the bread?

Also, this comment by you comes off sounding incredibly selfish and childish: their "thoughts don't get me much, should I praise them". What do they owe to you? Is this all about satisfying what Terifire wants? You paid how much for Reflex? How many hours did you play before you decided to go back to CPM? You're acting like the devs should be groveling for your approval with this statement.

No one is asking you to come here to praise Reflex devs. I'm praising them because I want to and I also feel compelled to defend them. You're posting these comments because, unless someone has a gun to your head, you want to. Your comments are clearly not for Reflex's benefit.

There's a couple other folks that are willing to defend the Reflex devs on ESR but mostly it's a "let's shit on Reflex" party on these forums. Do you see me going to CPM threads and shitting on CPM?

Well, no.. my case is that they did not make enough gameplay changes to make the game stand out as something new, something different. The changes they did make, made the game less enjoyable for me than CPM. I do think they missed an opportunity in trying out more experimental stuff now that it's out of beta.

CPMA 1.0 in 2000. Did that stop the CPMA team from experimenting? Unequiovocally, no. It did not. And there is nothing stopping it from happening. Apparently so since CPMA is back under development and may have walljumps and other highly experimental gameplay changes that no one has seen before.

What they are thinking is absolutely relevant because you're making these claims about their intentions. How can you say they "don't care" or "don't try" and then say what they're thinking is irrelevant? Since when is "caring" and "trying" independent to thinking? Does your toaster "care" about toasting bread? Does it "try" to toast the bread?

Also, this comment by you comes off sounding incredibly selfish and childish: their "thoughts don't get me much, should I praise them". What do they owe to you? Is this all about satisfying what Terifire wants? You paid how much for Reflex? How many hours did you play before you decided to go back to CPM? You're acting like the devs should be groveling for your approval with this statement.

I am not making claims about their intentions, I am also not saying they don't care. I am saying they haven't tried to experiment with gameplay enough. If only it were so simple as your weird toaster analogy. No, my toaster does not care or try, but hey, it toasts bread, if only game development was that simple. (what exactly was your point here?)

They don't owe me much, I honestly can't even remember if I bought Reflex or if someone gifted it. However what I said is not childish, it's far from it. The real adult world doesn't thrive on good intentions and caring, but on results. And I'll rephrase what I said earlier; happy, nice intentions and thoughts don't get us much. Ofcourse they are needed in the proces, and are fantastic if they lead to happy and nice results, but are useless without results.

Is this all about satisfying what Terifire wants?
You're acting like the devs should be groveling for your approval with this statement.

It's not, and I haven't said so. And no, I'm not acting like they should only cater to my needs, stop putting words in my mouth and respond to what I am actually saying, not to what you are assuming I'm saying between the lines.

For what it's worth, I have 1150+ hours in Reflex, a lot of that is spent making maps, two of which are in the proving grounds.

My posts would be for Reflex's benefit if it made the devs realize they should experiment with gameplay more. It won't be beneficial if it was waved away as being 'negative criticism'.

There's a couple other folks that are willing to defend the Reflex devs on ESR but mostly it's a "let's shit on Reflex" party on these forums. Do you see me going to CPM threads and shitting on CPM?

What does that have to do with my arguments, are you saying I'm shitting on Reflex? I keep posting because I hope the devs will realize what many people wanted is different from what we got, and will try to change that.

CPMA 1.0 in 2000. Did that stop the CPMA team from experimenting? Unequiovocally, no. It did not. And there is nothing stopping it from happening.

You keep coming back to this, but CPMA had experiments all the way up to 1.0 as well, which were (and still are) lacking in Reflex.

Apparently so since CPMA is back under development and may have walljumps and other highly experimental gameplay changes that no one has seen before.

I know exactly what is happening in CPMA development, and thus can see clearly how different it is from what I see from the Reflex devs.

I am not making claims about their intentions, I am also not saying they don't care. I am saying they haven't tried to experiment with gameplay enough. If only it were so simple as your weird toaster analogy. No, my toaster does not care or try, but hey, it toasts bread, if only game development was that simple. (what exactly was your point here?)

To quote xerosawyer, whoosh.

What does that have to do with my arguments, are you saying I'm shitting on Reflex? I keep posting because I hope the devs will realize what many people wanted is different from what we got, and will try to change that.

Elaborate on that. I think if any progress is going to be made in this conversation, it'll be here. If you really truly believe you're trying to be constructive, explain how your approach of arguing with me on ESR will get us there.

So far, you've said they've failed to deliver on their promises, they have not tried and there's no evidence they will try, and that they do not understand gameplay design. Through the act of reading your criticisms, these points will somehow change?

I know exactly what is happening in CPMA development, and thus can see clearly how different it is from what I see from the Reflex devs.

Such a deeply fallacious argument has ESReality ever seen, I know not. Because you know exactly what is happening with CPMA's development, therefore your knowledge of what is happening with Reflex development has been improved? Unless CPMA's development includes a portal into the minds and activities of the Reflex devs, I highly doubt that.

So, explain the toaster analogy. I am willing to admit I do not get it, are you going to back out or explain?

Elaborate on that. I think if any progress is going to be made in this conversation, it'll be here. If you really truly believe you're trying to be constructive, explain how your approach of arguing with me on ESR will get us there.

I want to make the devs realize many players are disappointed with the lack of experimental gameplay, to convince them to experiment more. I'll say this anywhere, and have mentioned this in other places. But yeah it comes up on ESR on a thread that gets views, so posting it here might get it attention.

So far, you've said they've failed to deliver on their promises, they have not tried and there's no evidence they will try, and that they do not understand gameplay design. Through the act of reading your criticisms, these points will somehow change?

Yes.
They have not tried enough experimental gameplay.
Not sure what would constitute evidence of their intentions...
Whether they understand gameplay design is unknown to me, as they haven't really shown it either through new gameplay mechanics or balancing (which has been done/is being done mostly by community members.
These points will hopefully change by them realizing they need a clear vision for what they want.

Such a deeply fallacious argument has ESReality ever seen, I know not. Because you know exactly what is happening with CPMA's development, therefore your knowledge of what is happening with Reflex development has been improved? Unless CPMA's development includes a portal into the minds and activities of the Reflex devs, I highly doubt that.

No, because I know exactly what is happening with CPMA's development, I can compare that to what I have seen and heard from Reflex development, no portal into minds required. I think you misread that.

So, explain the toaster analogy. I am willing to admit I do not get it, are you going to back out or explain?

Context: You said they did not try and there's no evidence they will try in the future. Pill has said they do not care. I said there is evidence they have tried, that they do care, and will continue to do so. To say otherwise would be to make assumptions about what they're thinking because you can judge them on past actions but to make assumptions about the future you have to also consider their thinking/motivation/etc.. You said thinking is irrelevant. I said, how is thinking irrelevant to caring and trying?

Therefore, I gave an analogy of a toaster which does not "think" (in the proper sense). Is it appropriate to use verbs like "try" and "care" in the actions of something that does not think? It is nonsensical to use those verbs in the case of something that does not think.

Hence, it's very relevant what someone is thinking when you say whether or not they are trying/caring.

I want to make the devs realize many players are disappointed with the lack of experimental gameplay, to convince them to experiment more. I'll say this anywhere, and have mentioned this in other places. But yeah it comes up on ESR on a thread that gets views, so posting it here might get it attention.

I'm going to parse your words here because it's important. You've proven you are disappointed. I think that's not under debate here. But who and how much is "many players"? There's still an active community and lots of people are playing/supporting the game.

Also, judging from CPMA's development, there were "many people" who were disappointed. arQon was constantly waging wars about xerp and various gameplay changes. I posted a quote by Newborn earlier in this thread but it's very relevant here so I'll post it again:

Game development is always iterative. You do a first pass, you tweak some stuff, you implement some new things, you tweak everything again, etc. Gameplay is no exception to this. This is why the CPMA changelog is 4500 lines, split into 100+ releases that span a decade.

During that time, we also saw plenty of people who "haven't touched the game since X" because the developers "fucked it up" for "no reason".

This included things like making the physics no longer FPS-dependant, reducing the railgun damage to 80 and plenty of other things that were supposed to be the death of the game but overwhelmingly resulted in far better gameplay in the long run.

If you want an exact match for CPMA, just play CPMA. Reflex is going to be testing, tweaking and changing things to make a better game and that's not something you can just magically do in a single release.

Reflex's progress has been, and will be, long and winding. In 5 years, perhaps you'll be so thoroughly disappointed that you won't muster the enthusiasm to reply to my shilling of Reflex on ESR. But there's also the possibility that your disappointment is not shared by everyone and that Reflex improves and progresses and you're just one of those people who would rather FPS-dependent physics or 100dmg rail (not literally saying, but figuratively).

The official forums are much, much more appropriate than here. If you have had private conversations with the devs, that's an even more appropriate situation than here. Personally, I think all you're accomplishing with these posts is convincing people already inclined to dislike Reflex to dislike it more.

Also, afaik, the devs do not come to ESR. I come here basically cause there's occasionally some funny or cool shit, and I'll shill Reflex until I die, but it's not quite the bastion of intelligent, thoughtful discussion about AFPS gameplay design. The real calamity here would be if the devs are going by what ESR is saying... That'd actually genuinely cause me to despair.

Not sure what would constitute evidence of their intentions...

I think a great deal of evidence can be extracted from the past 18 months or so. They spent who knows how many hours a night, in their free time, making Reflex happen. Getting it from where it was to where it is today. That is not something one does lightly and does not "care" about the outcome. Someone doesn't spend the time they did of their personal life on a project and says, "well, fuck it..." and gives up.

My belief is that they are deeply passionate about the game. It's their "baby". You might care about Reflex's success, but I absolutely guarantee you -- I'd bet my life's savings on it -- that their care about the game vastly, vastly outweighs yours. You say you played for 1500 hours. Imagine how much of their collective time has gone into making it. Have some empathy about it for a second.

My problem, I guess, is that you're more or less saying the devs aren't smart enough, work hard enough, and/or care enough to make Reflex better.

No, because I know exactly what is happening with CPMA's development, I can compare that to what I have seen and heard from Reflex development, no portal into minds required. I think you misread that.

I didn't. You do not know what the Reflex devs are doing nor have you ever seen their internal discussions. You have never been a Reflex dev yourself so you would not know what conversations they're having or what they're doing behind the scenes. Do you know what's going to be in 1.2? That's my point.

To be fair it is their job, their income...

My problem, I guess, is that you act like no one else cares about Reflex. Or that the devs aren't smart enough or work hard enough in your opinion.

I don't act like that, I don't think that, that's just something you see for some reason.

I didn't. You do not know what the Reflex devs are doing nor have you ever seen their internal discussions. You have never been a Reflex dev yourself so you would not know what conversations they're having or what they're doing behind the scenes. Do you know what's going to be in 1.2? That's my point.

I did say only compared cpma dev to what I SAW from Reflex dev, I did not claim to know how they do stuff internally. That said, I did talk about it with one of the devs.

True, they make money from it so it's their part-time job. Afaik, all three Reflex devs still work full-time jobs and Reflex has been a part-time gig. But the income they made (or will make) is predicated on the popularity of the game, no? Moreover, there should be no illusions that this is just some job they don't care about. You don't work a day job, go home and work a second job just for the hell of it. Especially when it's early in the development and no one is paying you anything for the work.

I don't act like that, I don't think that, that's just something you see for some reason.

I edited that part since it was not right.

IIRC it has been their main full-time job for a while.

I've never heard that. The whole KS was based on their full-time salary for 1 years period. Since that cancelled, where did the money come from to support them? It's been more than 2 years -- are you suggesting they've made more than $600,000 from Reflex to support them so far?

Everything I've ever heard has been that they do this in their part-time. Newborn said that repeatedly after the KS failed.

I've never heard that.

That's because you were never in the know. All your comments make that quite evident.

I'm going by what Newborn and the other devs have said once the KS failed, that they were doing this part-time and therefore it'd take longer. That makes sense since it took 2+ years to meet the goals they set in their KS (which was a 1 year deal).

How else would they make ends meet without the KS money? According to the KS thread, the money ($380,000 AUD or something) was 1 years worth of salary for the four of them plus money for contract work (textures, voice work, etc.). It was more than 2 years from KS failure to when Reflex went 1.0. They really supported themselves full-time with the early access release and supporter hatchets?

If what you say is true, so what? These guys quit their jobs to make Reflex happen and that's a bad thing? Some of the criticisms are that they don't care which would be especially laughable if their living is based on how well Reflex does. This might just be your hobby (playing video games) but this is their livelihood.

Reflex being around doesn't hurt you. If you're done with Reflex, I don't see what you get out of posting in threads like this. Stop with the celebrating Reflex's death shit.

You need to learn to read better. Here is the Kickstarter page. It was posted on Sep. 14, 2014, with a final product estimated for an August, 2016 launch. Is that one year, or two?

According to steamdb they have pushed ~52,000 copies. Do the math... It's not hard.

That's not even including the government funding they got either.

You need to learn to read better. I said KS thread where Newborn says:

It's a years wage for 3 developers (with minor paycuts from what we're making now) + money for contract work such as animation, concept art, boring lawyer stuff + tax/fees/etc.

It's a lot, but it's what it will cost to do the game properly -- we've taken it as far as we can developing out of hours using my now-entirely-depleted savings.

According to Steamdb, that's an estimate +/- ~6,000 copies. Now, do you know what % they make from every sale? How many copies were sold at a discount? How much they have to pay in taxes? Furthermore, those are current estimates. How many did they sell through development leading up to 1.0? Enough to support them for 2+ years?

Yeah dude you're right, they only asked for one year's worth of salary for a two year project. At some point in this conversation you need to turn your brain on.

At some point you'll just give up and go back to the CPM Discord echo chamber where you can bitch and be miserable all day long. It says something that you can't help yourself from posting in a Reflex thread.

It's a parody thread for why it's dead. Are you seriously this stupid?

Who cares? Reflex ded, devs suck, etc.?

they didn't try much in the beta too (which is the perfect time to experiment).

This is when I knew Reflex was going to fail. Their engine is pretty good, the art is OK but they just basically did nothing new gameplay wise.

I think those gameplay ideas left with newborn.

Yep, just didn't want to involve him in all this by saying so.

Everything I've read until I hit your post was complete and utter nonsense. Reflex is better than CPM right now. Has been for quite some time.

Get real folks, Lemmings are creatures of habit. Don't mistake the lemmings swaying one way as proof of the better game. If Reflex was released in the shape it is is now, when CPM came out, then CPM coming out now would be laughed off the stage.

Reflex is jammed packed with features, and industry leading netcode.

-ER

because of ikas video i was watching some reflex gameplay videos. i never paid attention to the game before. only thing i knew was it was kinda q3 cpma like.
now after watching those vids, im wondering why people should play reflex instead of q3 cpma?
did i miss any important details?

It's basically a glorified CPMA with modern features; match matching, customizable characters and what not.

What Herezja said plus updated graphics, improved netcode and input, Steam integration, and a lot of built-in features like the in-game map editor, replay editor (like q3mme/wolfcam), and matchmaking. Basically, it's an improved standalone CPMA. The better question is why not? The map editor is worth it alone.

The better question is why not?

It doesn't run on my operating system.

Could also be your computer doesn't meet minimum hardware specs either. There's going to be some limitations on that front. But some are self-imposed, some aren't.

Reflex using directx means that to port it to Linux or bsd based operating systems you would need to rewrite the rendering engine in OpenGL .

I know they promised that in the KS but that didn't happen. Did the devs say elsewhere that they'd do a Linux build?

I perfer the normal CPMA because the gameplay feels quite a bit nicer than reflex. Also, the graphics look nicer when I have them on.

They shouldn't.

Haters gonna hate.

:(

While the mechanics are pretty much identical at first glance, all the subtle differences add up to what in my opinion is a very different game. Reflex is more about setting up a good cycle, rather than trying to catch your opponent in a bad position. I think it's mostly because you have less burst damage in Reflex and self damage gets mitigated by armor which makes it less of an investment to self damage to take a lower tier armor. I think that if you prefer structured control you should play Reflex and if you prefer structured fights you should play CPM.

Reflex is the best looking afps game out there, it has a great balance of aesthetics vs visibility. It's also the best feeling afps game, everything is smooth and consistent for the most part.

The reason I don't play it anymore is because I'm bored of 1v1, and the team play options are non existant and generally uninteresting anyway.

I think had there been more reasons to play reflex aside from for hardcore 1v1ers, it would have done pretty well imo.

I will still occasionally play some 1v1, but casual teammodes is what I want to play these days when I do play..

what is the name of that song?

"great southern land" boosted 10db in audacity

so what gameplay changes do you guys want to see?
as if anything other than vanilla quake 3 wouldnt get laughed off the website

when you son comes to you gravestone to tells you quake is dead =[

*lights blunt of eternal sadness*

*fades back into blunted oblivion*

OMG

Is this a private knees up or can anyone join in?

:O

WELCOME BACK HERO OF THE NIGHT!

no update since version 1.1.2 (for months now)

has reflex development stopped ?

what's the future of reflex ?

who's left developping(shooter, erectro ?)/playing(ramagan, kyto etc ?) reflex ?

Still shooter, electro, and Yasashii, afaik. Still quite a bit of activity but it has slowly declined since 1.0 launch. There was a rather large tournament a couple weeks ago and several other smaller tournaments organized to test out a new ruleset.

Electro posted a few weeks ago on the official forums that they were hard at work on 1.2:

I'm working hard. I'm not going to promise features or hype anything, because what ends up being in the next build might change. When (or "wen" as people like to keep poking/hounding with) isn't known at this stage too, might be a few weeks away still.

I'm more so interested on refinement than inflating/polluting the game with more features. In an ideal world large games would happen and mysteriously have people appear out of nowhere to form endless queues of large matches, but it just doesn't happen. For example, we put a lot of time into doing CTF (a lot more than just flags...), the tech for larger maps was pretty huge, team visibility/customisation of all the colours and having those go into the maps also, sounds, events, hud/lua... there's quite a bit to it.

Regarding the abusive people saying they paid for X, game is ded devs are ded and pickering about trivial trash. You paid $10 or less and typically have hundreds of hours in-game. I'd like to know how many other games you pay for that have given as many hours and costed more. Get a reality check. Sit down.

Think about how much money is pumped into marketing for other titles from big studios and what their player numbers are at or typically hours played. Millions of dollars pumped into marketing alone which far exceeds any actual revenue for the entire project, but people still like to draw comparisons... yep, well done.

A lot of people like to think they have the secret magical answer to wave their wand and it's everything anyone ever could have possibly imagined, but the reality just isn't that.

I know people will probably slam me, but they slam me anyway regardless. Bust our asses on a huge update monthly... slammed, what about X or Y? wen.

Hype anything, get poked wen constantly, release, slammed... what about X or Y, do the devs even care. wen is X coming.

Don't say anything, try focus on working. Slammed. Say something. Slammed.

Stop with the negativity.

Enjoy something, the amount of content is insane. The updates have for a long time have been huge and frequent. The update is yes taking a bit longer this time, no need to get out the pitch forks and abuse.

I keep repeating this everywhere, but if you're interested in the future of Reflex, please listen to the interview the Reflex devs did with ArenaFPS if you haven't already. They say they have roughly 3 years worth of planned updates to the game, what they like/dislike about the game, and other things like that.

nice!

thanks

Electro is a lazy fuck. Everyone with two eyes and a brain can tell you that.

Why the animosity, dude?

R E S P E C T T H E D E V S

B U Y M O R E S U P P O R T E R H A T C H E T S

According to the last forum update by Erectro, another update is still in the works, it's just taking longer this time. Other than that, it has become very quiet around the devs.

Unfortunately they don't do roadmaps anymore.

Say my name bitch.

I predicted this, just like I predicted QC (check the "Quake Champions sucks") thread.

Modern games are dogshit period. They will whore themselves out for the casuals and the irony is, in the process, they will lose the hardcore players AND the casuals, because id or hardcore Quake players turned developers can't make games that can appeal to the mainstream better than corporations like Blizzard can.

So at the end of the day, noobs will go back to whatever shit they were playing (CS:GO, OW, whatever) and hardcore players will go back to QC, QW, CPMA. The riddle never ends.

PS: The game feels smooth, I like the engine etc, but theres always something that fucks the entire thing up.

what did u predict

Hard to say which one is better, this or the vegan thread?

listen, do you think I have an ything to say to those HEATHENS who dont eat a rib-eye? I know austistic vegatible scientific experts will whine about shit all day on there but at the end of the day I am eating a nice... steak ok and they are not =]

no one would notice if i place it here

The future is not Reflex, Quake champions is.

Heh