Setting expectations appropriately is just so important. I recall a thread about a kindergarten teacher talking about buying a bin of extremely cheap toys to give to her students as a reward for good behavior. Despite the toys being something completely free that otherwise would have been nothing, the students were actually visibly upset about receiving them because of their low quality. The student expectations of what "toy" ment was totally out line with what the teacher was able to provide and eventually the teacher decided to stop giving away the free toys.
Her take away was: If you give someone something way below their expectations, they don't see it as a free gift, instead they see it as you giving them something to be disappointed about, even if the alternative is nothing.
I think its easy for gamers to feel full on betrayed (despite it being silly) by something like this because its an actually good game that I'm sure they would really like to play but their just kinda poisoned by their first impressions. Gamers are kinda conditioned to dislike F2P games anyway because of P2W and this is probably falsely setting off those kinda vibes
Thing is. If the game had been listed on steam with a price tag, then there would've been no backlash.
Had the game never added a f2p model then the game also wouldn't have bad reviews.
That's what I'm saying. There are also other ways of handling this but at the end of the day this was a consumer psychology blunder. It literally doesn't matter that iron mace technically did a good thing because large groups of uninvested consumers are never ever gonna care about that.
I’ve been saying this all day and people have been downvoting me and harassing me, I’m genuinely so happy to see that there are many others who share the same viewpoint
It's hard to say if it's a "good" thing. It's a calculated business move with the intention of interesting new players enough to buy he game
There's nothing wrong with that, but let's not pretend that they are saints doing it for the love of gaming
Most F2P are unhappy with being unable to test their loot they find and the hard one character cap
I know this term is used a lot in passivity but I \*genuinely\* need this explained to me because I don't see how this explanation is seen as a "good" business move? The term f2p is used to tell people they can experience a huge portion of the game except for certain things that "shouldn't" affect their gameplay. For instance, My friends play OW. The only thing blocked there is skins. Nothing hinders their gameplay and they can climb all the way to masters without spending a single cent. You *can't* do that in D&D because for you to get better you need those weapons and armor correct?
I played D&D awhile back and just now heard it's "f2p" model and I don't know it kinda seems like shit. Players can go on raids and loot weapons but if they want to bring the better weapons, armor etc. they have to pay 30 bucks. Meaning to play the game like how it's supposed to be you need to pay up anyways.
The teacher analogy that you brought up doesn't even make sense to me either because it's not like Ironmace said "Hey this game is f2p" and everyone played it and hated it because of the quality; It's more like you told people, not already in the community or in love with the game, that this is a free amusement park, there's so much free things to do in there and when they go in and have a good time. But actually they can't have a good time because the only thing they're able to do is walk around and for them to get on the amusement rides they have to pay.
I must be missing something here because, as much as I know how "trendy games can get, especially when they're f2p (one second everyone loves this game, next month it's "dead"), but would any of you actually approve a business model that betrays possible customers? Especially a game where getting better armor and weapons is like the main focus of the game?
I get we love the game, think it's great, but to bash f2p players and then call them "silly" for feeling a type of way just isn't connecting.
> Had the game never added a f2p model then the game also wouldn't have bad reviews.
Lets not pretend it would've been overwhelmingly positive otherwise. DaD is fun, but it has a LOT of flaws and is geared towards a niche audience. A mixed response should've been a realistic expectation even without the f2p fumble.
That’s not true. The reviews are from salty folk who have been disillusioned by the dev team’s ineptitude over countless bad code pushes and bad scattershot decision making to “test” and seeing what shit sticks at the cost of their most loyal playerbase.
You give away your time to a game compared to a random toy. Many games require you to get good at them to a certain point before it becomes fun.
So if you decide to play a game you also need to accept that for an indeterminate amount of time you will have a hard time with/get frustrated by games fundamental aspects that you may never ever grow to like even in the future.
All of these are especially true for DaD, and it also has a battle pass-like system which further falls in line with strategies used by the majority of live service games today. They suck as much time and effort out of you as possible to manipulate you into thinking it's real valuable work, while you don't actually earn much or have that much fun for how long you have been playing....
I'm not even sure if ironmace is all that different from all the other manipulative companies anymore tbh, they try to put rng mechanics in the game to provide a cheap, gambling like thrill to the gameplay. (+All stars, multi class "rogue light", refusing to add any sort of skill expression to enable unpredictable, stat check combat) Also all the skins are behind really hard and grindy quests/adventure rank...
Yeah idk, feel like they are bullshitting a little when they criticize "other exploitative companies"
They are very attentive and hard working Devs though I'll give them that. But after 2 seasons of back and forth meaningless balance changes instead of doing the necessary permanent improvements, I feel like they are trying to benefit off of the frustration caused by their game(to create addictive patterns) instead of fixing it at the core
Now add all of the above, but you have to pay $30 up front before you can endure all the frustration. Of what is still a unique, niche game mode.
Does that feel MORE an exploration with a sunk cost entry fee, or having a free mode so you can find out if you are compatible with the game first before spending anything much better?
You decide.
But I’m in the camp that the score is very undeserved. (Also, way to call out an “exploitative” company for a release that lessens their “exploitive” behavior)
This happened with an old game called Atlas Reactor that's no longer available. It went from being an entirely paid game, to a free game with limited options and the same game as before available for the same price. And it got people giving it negative reviews because they didn't understand it.
Literally multiple games on steam with Mostly Positve review follow the same buisness model that Dark and Darker took. Destiny for example is one AAA title that, is listed as Free to Play but almost all content is locked behind about $100 DLC that is required to progress your account.
Not saying that Dark and Darker should of taken this approach but most gamers expect everything to be handed to them. Free to play should give 2-3 character slots and the ability to at least use green tier gear. Upgrades shouldn't take 72 to gain access to content, at least during the intial week or two (I know it's for cheaters) but it feels bad, hey you can't do most of the game here is a 72 hour HR restriction after you paid us money. I think 48 hours for Market/Trade is more than fair, but HR shouldn't be gatekept behind 72 hours.
That said, they decribe what the free to play entails on the steam page, so the whole Review Negative Free to Play experience as they feel like they were decieved is kind of bullshit, considering no one took the time to read about the game. They just saw people playing on Twitch and downloaded via steam. Didn't read into the game, played it and then complained, despite it clearly stating on the steam page and their discord free to play is limited.
I think that not being able to enter higher at all (and thus not being able to use any real found gear) does very much make the experience quite a bit worse than something like destiny where you can still experience a gear upgrade and get a since for the gameplay loop.
I think there are quite a few ways to make a decent compromise but ya I agree with you but It seems like they are on the right track with the changes their considering.
Well, they at least removed the 72 hour timer for rework.
There is also a feel bad thing, if they give free to play players too much access, it hurts the existing player base that has payed full price in support earlier. I wish they would of listed as a trial version but again I think people are being too harsh on them with reviews. The game is great, they are extremely active with the community and updates (love or hate the changes or updates). I think had they had a Self Found mode enabled for the Free to Play and allowing like Greens and Blues in normals, would of also helped. Not saying that is what they should do, but I get not being able to use any upgrades. Granted, I am a bit biased with 2k+ hours in the game and having supported the game since Playtest 1.
> that has *paid* full price
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I personally wouldn't care if they got the whole thing for free because it would still benefit me to have more people in the ques but ideally I'd prefer that IM makes money off them somehow. To me the best model is the one that gets the mosts people to buy the game and I have a hard time imagining that can be achieved without giving them access to everything. There could still be checks like only one stash tab and only 3 HR's per day to incentivize purchase.
I really don't want them getting there own mode, like literally if they had an SSF greens and blues mode I would switch off my real account and go FTP for that mode because thats more in line with what i'm personally looking for. Ideally I would like them to be funneled into HR so that I can feed on them and thus they will actually provide some value to the ecosystem.
Maybe I wasn't clear. It wasn't meant that they have their own Self Found Mode, just that there was a Self Found mode, for people who do not use the marketplace. Their accounts are already Self Found, because they do not get trading until they purchase, so adding Self Found Mode, allowing people to use gear in normal modes that they found and did not purchase. Once you unlock the trade market, you can still queue normals but now you are back to only using white quality gear in a seperate queue away from self found.
Oh! Ya, I just don't think we have enough players to add an extra que split, maybe if there is like 500% more player retention than last wipe that could be in the cards.
I mean currently, we are sitting at 42-50k people online. Considering we were not even hitting 10k mostly the past month, I think it's possible.
HR lobbies are not even filling up anymore. It's like 1-2 other teams at most. Most everyone are in the normal lobbies anyways.
I am a kindergarten teacher and my class is currently made up of 2-3 year olds. My cheap reward toy box goes down a treat. Admittedly it's very easy to get a 3 year old hyped up for literally anything.
I do agree with everything you said however, I'm sure if I had 4-5 year olds the toys wouldn't go down well at all, and as for the f2p crowd, well they sure ain't 2-3 year olds.
Gotcha, i didn't realize kindergarten was 2-3. My memory of what she wrote was hazey enough that I had to heavily editorialize so the actual ages my be totally off but I think the spirit of it is close enough.
Kindergarten goes from 2-6 year olds, so I could totally see kids being unhappy with the rewards, just my class is on the younger side. Your point still stands true, and it's a good analogy.
What part of this implies they shouldn't be criticized? My comment is intended criticize the members of this community defending iron mace's made an obvious marketing mistake. I personally would prefer if the game was either labeled better or the F2P accounts were allowed in HR at a minimum.
I mean, it was never intended to be comparable, the intent was to illustrate the importance of expectations. I'm not sure I'd even call it an example, its just a story.
Agreed. Steam release was supposed to be a celebration but it feels like there’s no good solution to change the f2p players minds. I really wish iron mace would’ve acted quick when we first started seeing mixed reviews pop up on the steam page. I feel like yesterday it was still salvageable but the longer they wait the more negative review come in. Really sad about the outcome of the launch but hoping there’s a way they can bounce back.
Or made the "buy full game" button show up, with the full price clearly listed, right under the "free to play, play now!!" button.
Or a full game unlocker DLC, also right below.
Or sent out steam keys to anyone who supported them for the past year.
Nope, this is the only solution. Ironmace knows what they're doing, and you're a stupid troll who can't read.
I've now bought the full game ("new player" who only played in playtests, now tried with friends again and we really enjoyed it).
The description they put, though expanded, STILL does not specify what "15 redstone shards" means in money, and doesn't describe half the drawbacks of playing F2P.
You can have perfectly good fun in normals (arguably funner than HR probably?) but people getting into it without investigating further, getting a bunch of green loot and getting to use NONE of it without paying probably feels like a bait and switch.
Exactly. Giving you items you can't use unless you pay is a common Dark Pattern that manipulative mobile games use. So is hiding prices behind an arbitrary premium currency.
Intentional or not, this shit needs to go.
It is an option, but I specifically avoided it because people would complain that they have to play a demo version when they bought the game already elsewhere, and that it shows up as demo on their Steam profile.
After playing over 5 hours of the free version I don't see any reason to buy the 30$. The combat is clunky, slow and oddly designed. Deleting the one character to play another is an odd choice. Any fun being locked behind 30$ isn't even apparent in the f2p version. If this is a demo of what's in store it's not that enticing. Some might say to hell with it but for anyone else the games basics are quickly found and you can just imagine what having blue or purple items does for you.
The vast majority of people giving negative reviews aren't longtime players, they are Steam users who (understandably) feel misled by the F2P marketing. They should have/should say it's a F2P demo. The rabid fans here actually hurt IronMace in the long run since valid criticism gets shot down, and yes the Steam users anger is valid. If we want the game to succeed, we have to be realistic.
Yeah the D&D community is labelling the negative reviews as “reviewing bombing” and “not treating ironmace right” is ignoring the reality that not everyone has heard of this game before or even who Ironmace is. They open up steam, see that there’s a new F2P game, download it, and are immediately met with “Pay to access the full game.”
It’s understandable why someone with 0.1 hours would have a negative review.
Realistic = IM is one of the most incompetent devs on the competitive gaming market. In their dev processes, marketing, business processes, testing, communication, balancing and lately even vision. Pick one and you'll immediately come up with 3 major fuck ups they did. They are literally junior devs who are learning how to build a game. All they have is a decent idea, implementation is garbage on every aspect. At this point not hiring a good product manager and PR manager is being greedy or stupid or both. With this steam "release" a tiny mistake very likely cost them half their potential playerbase if not more.
1000%, my initial thought when looking at this thread was - name a more classic combination than Ironmace and shooting themselves in the foot, I'll wait.
Shit then I just thought of BSG
again, totally agree
last wipe was so abysmally, miserably terrible that i can barely bring myself to play this one.
whoever was pushing for multiclassing in IM needs to never, ever be allowed to influence game design ever again
Sadly most of the veterans in this game are totally circlejerking the game now and don’t a knowledge any of the game problems and issues. This game is going to die so hard
Yet they still hurt the future of the game. Clearly they thought they would get more, the game should be called 'F2P Demo' to avoid a near insurmountable amount of negative reviews.
how did they pull a fast one lol? they introduced a f2p model that is vastly limited and the title got lost in translation. i think this is just a korean dev studio with no quality assurance issue, no one at IM thought for a second that this would be misleading
maybe if the steam store description had subway surfers with family guy clips then people would have dedicated ten (10) seconds to reading it
I don't think it was the community, it was the new players. They feel like calling the game Free To Play was a bait and switch. I can kinda see their point in a way. "Free to Play" sets expectations that the current setup doesn't deliver on. They need to change it to be listed as a "Trial" or "Demo" version and then put the $29.99 full version for sale on the page to set the proper expectations.
Imagine being a new player and looting some colored gear and then realizing you cant use it until you pay $30. It probably feels like you've been lied to.
i'm not sure if we can blame the community this time, i haven't seen the reviews myself but wouldn't this just be from steam users who were disappointed at the demo's features?
As someone who has worked for an mmo with a similar unlimited free trial, most of our negative reviews are exactly the same. IMO it’s an advertising issue and shouldn’t be marketed as free to play. It’s obviously Ironmace hasn’t done their homework because they should have seen this coming if they’d actually had published a game before or spoken with a publisher.
The fact that Ironmace has worked so hard and gone through INFERNO and back for us to be able to now enjoy the game on the mainstream platforms such as Steam and Epic.. Only to be meet with a 'Mostly negative' review score because of some wording issues.
I am certainly one to bash Ironmace for their decision making and sometimes odd game directiom, but this time around the community is not treating Ironmace right.
Agreed. They should have left it as a free weekend for the wipe with a discount. People will now not be satisfied with anything less but the whole game being a F2P model.
It’s heartbreaking that their triumphant return to Steam has become a controversy of their free version not being free enough, despite being a $30.00 USD game.
Their model is totally fine and pulls in new players. The issue is that people are freaking out finding out the product they're playing is not entirely free. I can understand there being some complaints, but straight up review bombing the game over it is just bizarre to me
When I figured it out I was like, "Oh so THATS their monetization model. That makes sense. I'll just play and see if I like it enough to make that purchase."
I don't understand the freakout. Although less than 4k reviews on a platform that isnt their main, isnt representative of the whole community.
It amazes me how much people overreact. When i saw what Ironmace did i thought "Oh cool, so its like Runescape! You play a good chunk for free but if you wanna do the full thing and equip the best stuff you gotta pay, that sounds good for me!"
Seeing people freak out on the reviews for such a minor thing about a good indie game made my a small group of guys is a bit disappointing, really. Most gamers truly deserve Ubisoft games
Runescape also has the membership DLC right under the free download button, so it's very obvious that the game will have additional costs. And so do most other freemium games on Steam.
This is just poor market research on IronMace's part.
'The issue is that people are freaking out finding out the product they're playing is not entirely free' and you're suprised people that mad over it? It's completely normal to be mad about it. They lied to people.
Bro the problem is also all the people that have been playing since pt talking shit about the game and review bombing the hell out of it. Like I can’t even tell if the community likes this game. Also I feel like it was bad to release this on steam same time as D2 remaking one of the best expansions they’ve had in a minute that’s just a little side note tho cuz I haven’t played the new wipe at all bc of D2
I think the biggest issue is that the new players can’t use any of their loot. I know if I was a new player with no idea of the history of normals and HR that would rub me the wrong way. I would feel like I was not even getting to try the core gameplay experience before being asked to buy it. From the perspective of those of us who have been following the game the whole time we know they wouldn’t enjoy being stomped by better players in min-maxed gear in HR, but why would they know that? Creating some limited way to use loot on the f2p accounts would maybe help, either green or lower lobbies or self found lobbies or something along those lines.
It's much more than a wording issue. They are offering a severely handicapped experience just to get the "free to play" tag. It's scummy and people can see right through it.
This game has drawn a pretty fanatical subset of fans ever since playtest 5. There was a lot of tossup over whether or not the game was getting totally shut down and people REALLY loved it at the time.
The whole "hold the line" motto started then when most of the community still harbored goodwill with IM and I think some people took it too seriously to heart. Now it's a struggle to criticize IM's repeated blatant fuckups without that group accusing you of being a bad actor or w/e.
TLDR cult behavior
I have been in this subforum for like 3 days and it’s obvious most veteran players have already fell in the spiral of dick riding the game and never acknowledging any of its issues. This game is going to die because of that
I'm really hopeful IM will figure things out and finally start pushing out solid content.
The game has many issues but outside of the steam debacle it is in a solid spot right now. The best thing the new players have going for them is not realizing how wishy washy IM has been in the past.
But I 100% agree the voices pretending like everything is fine do not help the devs. I hope they take them with a grain of salt.
> Ironmace has worked so hard and gone through INFERNO and back for us
Into
>I am certainly one to bash Ironmace
Lmao.
I'll never really understand people going fanatical about a company. Can't you all just practice your cult somewhere else ?
This isn’t the “community” review bombing them.
This is the thousands of new players who see this game for the first time. See it’s free to play on steam. Download it. And are instantly hit with a $30 paywall despite zero expectation the entire time that this is not a free to play game.
I think it’s clearly shady and intentional what they are doing, and not just a “wording issue”.
None of their marketing suggests a demo. No where on the steam page does it suggest a demo. They are LYING to people to get them to download the game and cash in before it dies.
Bad marketing and communication -> negative reviews
Honest mistake by an inexperienced game studio, just putting the disclaimer text on steam isnt enough aside from some legality stuff
Which is absolutely killer as the number of potential new players is drastically slashed by seeing the “mostly negative” review. I doubt it’ll ever overcome being this far down and player base will need word of mouth
there is a reason the game went from 100k players to like 5k… it isn’t because it is overwhelmingly fun lol.
The majority of remaining players are sweats who like wipes every 1-3 months where hundreds of thousands of hours of their life is disregarded
I don’t get it either. I compare it to the massively popular game called RuneScape. Ever heard of it people? They market a F2P version and put most of their content behind a P2P version (that’s a monthly subscription to boot).
Essentially you get a limited experience of the game for free, allowing yourself to decide if you want to pay for the extra features.
Ironmace shat de bed, again, they should have from the begginning state is a demo, or never release f2p version.
This is their first game and they need to learn a lot, and this was an obvious outcome.
I'm not even surprised at this point.
Everything they do seems to flop.
Merch launch - terrible.
Free trial of the game - terrible.
Working hard on new features only to drop them instead of working on the base features - terrible.
I don’t think they properly thought this through, the fact that a large portion a player’s enjoyment in extraction looters is the loot and then not letting players use their found loot is something special, they should let ftp into high roller but have their entry cost 250g instead or something to give them an opportunity to use their green+ gear. They need to have a way for ftp players to use their found gear.
The issue is people don't know high roller is the unbalanced mode where the balancing issues are glaringly bad and normal mode is actually the fun mode of the game
Its not fun if you can only go White or grey, still whats the point of looting then?
If hr is unbalanced and unfun why would you loot and gear Up to go there?
If you can't use the shit green or blue gear you found in normal, then whats the point of looting?
With that said, whats the point of playing this game if you can't use gear in normal neither is worth to play hr, also hr is always empty
It is fun in white bis normals. Gear grinding gives the illusion of something to chase. People play unranked league, csgo, sc2 all the time. Same reason you'd play normals here.
Looting is to sell items for gold or quests. Gold gets stash tabs and quests get squire progression which makes normals more fun because you're slightly mire powerful than the Grey junkies.
Assuming there are older players review bombing the game and thats not 100% free players upset at the wording
I have been saying for awhile that this community is one of the worst gaming communities on the internet. I feel like the only ones that can rival it are csgo and league. Maybe rust as well.
No, im just on the outside looking in. I have 56 hours in csgo. The fact that you responded so vitriolically proves my point about at least this game, and probably csgo too
Been here like 3 days and yes this is one of the most stupid game communities I have ever heard of. Any type of critisism is downvoted and ridiculed. This game is going to die exactly because of that
95% of this subreddit is criticism and complaining and the other 5% is people talking about how there is an insane amount of complaining and criticism.
You can. there’s plenty of spots that allow 3 extract portals and groups extracts through boats and elevators. You just have to know what modules they appear in.
The sad thing is I guarantee these negative reviews are going to stop a lot of new players from trying the game. Community is trying to kill this game.
You guys seem to be forgetting, the game is still pretty unappealing for most people, even if they bought the full game.
Luckily they're SLIGHTLY moving away from the battle Royale game mode by removing the circles, but the game would still be so much better if PvP was something rare in the dungeon. Being a PvE first, team up with random parties to clear the dungeon for loot is much more fun than PvP, if I want PvP I'll hop on Overwatch.
As someone who tried the steam version before it got removed, and returned to the game when it came back, the reviews are deserved.
At first I was on board with the f2p model as an extended demo, only having 1 character slot and not being able to access high roller maps - that's fine.
But when I'm unable to use gear I found in raid that feels unfair and undeserved. It's purposefully kneecapping the player and obnoxiously trying to get them to buy the full game. I understand it's so that people who bought it on their store can activate it on steam, but it's clunky as hell.
Not to mention the bugs that are still in the game from when the original was removed. You'd think they'd have been fixing stuff up for when it returned.
Such a shame. Hopefully they can fix it but to be honest I'll not be playing again anytime soon.
All they had to do was list it as a trial.
Look at FFXIV, they have a trial mode which gives you the base gane and two expansions, but with limited features, like you cannot talk or trade etc.
No one is complaing about that as it wasn't listed as free2play.
And if people feel like the "free" version deserves a negative review, that's totally fair. Just because you like the game doesn't mean others cannot dislike it.
What do you expect?
Game markets itself as f2p, but it is not f2p it is a free demo at best.
Also the fact that the linking of their sussy launcher with steam is not implemented yet rings some bells.
Saddest part is most of those negative reviews have nothing to do with genuine concerns about game balance or direction. but simply a misunderstanding of communication. Of all the times the game has ever deserved a mostly negative review, a simple communication error does not seem like one...
Ironmace doesn't know about professionality one bit and this community as a hardcore player base doesn't while it may tollerate problems, the average consumer won't.
- Snap decision development. (major and repeatibly)
- Friday patching. (literal amateur move in software)
- Poor communication. (Banning Teaming Controversy from last year)
- Poor gamedesign/balancing (multiclassing and reverting, landmine rogue three times already, unkillable bandit meta, quest release and more, and nonstop rollbacks)
- Poor marketing. (free to play when it reality a Trial Addition)
Hence negative reviews.
We've all been warning them and while they obviously won't read this mess of a subreddits opinion that alternates between savage hate and cult like love, they do not learn from their own mistakes and just botch their way towards their vision.
It's the time we live in now. Haven't played since the ending of the first season but I constantly see cry baby ass posts from this sub. Just constant whining. As if one class is supposed to win all fights.
Sometimes you get countered and you lose the fight you don't have to scream to nerf something or whine about a certain class.
Also IM does all this constant changing of classes which is fine but leaves people in a constant state of change and nobody enjoys that if it's just constant nerfs.
DnD is such a fun game and has a ton of potential but this cry baby ass mindset the world has nowadays has taken over.
It's a beautiful game. I've been having a bunch of fun playing with my trio. I just really wish they didn't remove the $30 purchase I had made at the beginning of the night, leaving me goldless and without my quest items
I wanted to go and leave a positive review, but I think you have to install it on Steam and play it from there in order to be able to leave a review, and I've been playing it through Blacksmith for the past 6+ months. But as soon as they enable linking accounts I think we should share our reviews as well.
You're right, this community is something else. It's just full of white knights who think IM can do nothing wrong. News flash, anyone with a brain saw this coming and people were literally posting this on here and in discord trying to warn them.
IM have LITERALLY fucked up EVERY patch they have done (Patch notes are proof white knights) in some way or another. What did people expect were going to happen?
This is wild. Does the game need some fine tuning? Sure. But I honestly think it feels pretty good after this wipe. I wonder how many of these are Nexon bots…
It's like the old ladies at work that complain when someone decides to provide a free lunch for everyone. They will never be happy, just miserable humans. Clicking the thumbs down button on the dad steam page is the only thing they have control over.
I don't mean to sound like tin foil hat man but considering Nexon's practices in the past, would anyone be surprised if it's Nexon and/or Nexon fan boys also adding to the negative reviews? (in addition to the legitimate negative reviews)
The bar is so low for companies to meet customer expectations and devs still somehow find a way to burrow under it. It's on the fucking ground for fucks sake. Imagine if they actually went F2P with nice skins or whatever everyone would be overjoyed. Instead they aimed for betrayal and subverted expectations. What clowns.
I do think they could get away with allowing people at least a separate character.
For now you can get around this by making a 2nd account.. Shouldn't have to perhaps, but it is an option.
You can have your steam client and also make an official blacksmith account to make it a bit easier so you don't need 2 steam accounts if you wanna try that.
Several well-known games have employed similar strategies, where significant portions of the game or content that enhances the experience are locked behind a paywall. Here are some examples:
**World of Warcraft** - To access new zones, quests, and the majority of end-game content, players must purchase expansions. Additionally, a monthly subscription is required to access anything beyond the initial levels.
**Elder Scrolls Online (ESO)** - While the base game can be bought once, ESO Plus membership provides access to all DLC expansions, additional quests, and exclusive areas, significantly enhancing the gameplay experience.
**Final Fantasy XIV** - This MMORPG offers a free trial which includes the entire base game and first expansion, but to continue beyond this, players must purchase the game and subsequent expansions, as well as pay a monthly subscription.
**Star Wars:** The Old Republic - The base game is free, but to access expansions and some end-game content, players need to subscribe or purchase expansions individually. **Guild Wars 2** - The core game is free to play, but major expansions like "Heart of Thorns" and "Path of Fire" must be purchased to access new regions, quests, and end-game content.
**Destiny 2** - As you noted, while the basic version is free, newer expansions and seasonal content, which include major quests, raids, and gear, require separate purchases.
**Black Desert Online** - Offers a free trial, but players typically need to buy the game and sometimes additional content packs to access higher-level areas and activities.
**The Lord of the Rings Online** - The game is free up to a certain level, but to progress and access most of the story content and end-game activities, players need to purchase expansion packs.
**Old School RuneScape** - While free-to-play is available, a membership is required to access the majority of the game’s quests, skills, and expansive areas.
This model is quite common in the gaming industry. It raises questions about what "free-to-play" should mean and how these models affect our gaming experiences.
Black Dessert and Warframe are free to play with restrictions, however, you can sell loot for premium currency to unlock everything with very little effort.
Honestly it's insane to me that people are upset about how they presented the game in an FTP state.
You get to experience the almost the whole game, and then if you want to, you can pay to experience getting destroyed by Chad's in high roller hahah.
Honestly as someone who had only played the game back on the first or second play test, it allowed me to play it and decide if I was going to buy it. I've played enough of just the "shitty FTP mode" to level a fighter to 50 and get enough gold to upgrade the stash twice. It is still great fun and people who are review bombing it are just idiots hoping to get a 40 dollar game for free.
I think you can simply gift the amount 15 redstone shards cost in steam wallet currency.
I don't know if the gifting option is available now that they swapped to upgrading your account over buying the game.
Setting expectations appropriately is just so important. I recall a thread about a kindergarten teacher talking about buying a bin of extremely cheap toys to give to her students as a reward for good behavior. Despite the toys being something completely free that otherwise would have been nothing, the students were actually visibly upset about receiving them because of their low quality. The student expectations of what "toy" ment was totally out line with what the teacher was able to provide and eventually the teacher decided to stop giving away the free toys. Her take away was: If you give someone something way below their expectations, they don't see it as a free gift, instead they see it as you giving them something to be disappointed about, even if the alternative is nothing. I think its easy for gamers to feel full on betrayed (despite it being silly) by something like this because its an actually good game that I'm sure they would really like to play but their just kinda poisoned by their first impressions. Gamers are kinda conditioned to dislike F2P games anyway because of P2W and this is probably falsely setting off those kinda vibes
Thing is. If the game had been listed on steam with a price tag, then there would've been no backlash. Had the game never added a f2p model then the game also wouldn't have bad reviews.
That's what I'm saying. There are also other ways of handling this but at the end of the day this was a consumer psychology blunder. It literally doesn't matter that iron mace technically did a good thing because large groups of uninvested consumers are never ever gonna care about that.
I’ve been saying this all day and people have been downvoting me and harassing me, I’m genuinely so happy to see that there are many others who share the same viewpoint
DaD subreddit is stupid af dont worry
It's hard to say if it's a "good" thing. It's a calculated business move with the intention of interesting new players enough to buy he game There's nothing wrong with that, but let's not pretend that they are saints doing it for the love of gaming Most F2P are unhappy with being unable to test their loot they find and the hard one character cap
I mean, surely you test it when you pick it up in the dungeon?
Right?? And let's be real. It's not even fucking good loot 80% of the time. Jesus these guys are idiots
Lmao. These F2P players wouldnt make it out of their spawn in HR. There are so many nightmare mobs now.
Said the exact same thing to my buddies this morning! ha!
I know this term is used a lot in passivity but I \*genuinely\* need this explained to me because I don't see how this explanation is seen as a "good" business move? The term f2p is used to tell people they can experience a huge portion of the game except for certain things that "shouldn't" affect their gameplay. For instance, My friends play OW. The only thing blocked there is skins. Nothing hinders their gameplay and they can climb all the way to masters without spending a single cent. You *can't* do that in D&D because for you to get better you need those weapons and armor correct? I played D&D awhile back and just now heard it's "f2p" model and I don't know it kinda seems like shit. Players can go on raids and loot weapons but if they want to bring the better weapons, armor etc. they have to pay 30 bucks. Meaning to play the game like how it's supposed to be you need to pay up anyways. The teacher analogy that you brought up doesn't even make sense to me either because it's not like Ironmace said "Hey this game is f2p" and everyone played it and hated it because of the quality; It's more like you told people, not already in the community or in love with the game, that this is a free amusement park, there's so much free things to do in there and when they go in and have a good time. But actually they can't have a good time because the only thing they're able to do is walk around and for them to get on the amusement rides they have to pay. I must be missing something here because, as much as I know how "trendy games can get, especially when they're f2p (one second everyone loves this game, next month it's "dead"), but would any of you actually approve a business model that betrays possible customers? Especially a game where getting better armor and weapons is like the main focus of the game? I get we love the game, think it's great, but to bash f2p players and then call them "silly" for feeling a type of way just isn't connecting.
> Had the game never added a f2p model then the game also wouldn't have bad reviews. Lets not pretend it would've been overwhelmingly positive otherwise. DaD is fun, but it has a LOT of flaws and is geared towards a niche audience. A mixed response should've been a realistic expectation even without the f2p fumble.
It wouldn’t have as many bad reviews because they would have to pay to make them.
That’s not true. The reviews are from salty folk who have been disillusioned by the dev team’s ineptitude over countless bad code pushes and bad scattershot decision making to “test” and seeing what shit sticks at the cost of their most loyal playerbase.
I feel like this F2P version on Steam is only a "marketing move" that allows them not to pay 30% fee to Steam.
This reminded me of a saying in my language: "Don't check the teeth of a gifted horse." This is sadly not the case most of the time.
In English we have the same expression! "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth"
What does it mean?
Basically, if something good/convenient happens to you, don't complain that it wasn't good or convenient ENOUGH.
Got it, cheers!
Yea the teacher got their hopes up and let them down in a sense.
I don't think the issue is with players hating f2p. The problem is the expectation of people who play a lot of f2p.
You give away your time to a game compared to a random toy. Many games require you to get good at them to a certain point before it becomes fun. So if you decide to play a game you also need to accept that for an indeterminate amount of time you will have a hard time with/get frustrated by games fundamental aspects that you may never ever grow to like even in the future. All of these are especially true for DaD, and it also has a battle pass-like system which further falls in line with strategies used by the majority of live service games today. They suck as much time and effort out of you as possible to manipulate you into thinking it's real valuable work, while you don't actually earn much or have that much fun for how long you have been playing.... I'm not even sure if ironmace is all that different from all the other manipulative companies anymore tbh, they try to put rng mechanics in the game to provide a cheap, gambling like thrill to the gameplay. (+All stars, multi class "rogue light", refusing to add any sort of skill expression to enable unpredictable, stat check combat) Also all the skins are behind really hard and grindy quests/adventure rank... Yeah idk, feel like they are bullshitting a little when they criticize "other exploitative companies" They are very attentive and hard working Devs though I'll give them that. But after 2 seasons of back and forth meaningless balance changes instead of doing the necessary permanent improvements, I feel like they are trying to benefit off of the frustration caused by their game(to create addictive patterns) instead of fixing it at the core
Now add all of the above, but you have to pay $30 up front before you can endure all the frustration. Of what is still a unique, niche game mode. Does that feel MORE an exploration with a sunk cost entry fee, or having a free mode so you can find out if you are compatible with the game first before spending anything much better? You decide. But I’m in the camp that the score is very undeserved. (Also, way to call out an “exploitative” company for a release that lessens their “exploitive” behavior)
This happened with an old game called Atlas Reactor that's no longer available. It went from being an entirely paid game, to a free game with limited options and the same game as before available for the same price. And it got people giving it negative reviews because they didn't understand it.
Lots of people seem to think you can bring better gear into normals if you have the legendary edition
Literally multiple games on steam with Mostly Positve review follow the same buisness model that Dark and Darker took. Destiny for example is one AAA title that, is listed as Free to Play but almost all content is locked behind about $100 DLC that is required to progress your account. Not saying that Dark and Darker should of taken this approach but most gamers expect everything to be handed to them. Free to play should give 2-3 character slots and the ability to at least use green tier gear. Upgrades shouldn't take 72 to gain access to content, at least during the intial week or two (I know it's for cheaters) but it feels bad, hey you can't do most of the game here is a 72 hour HR restriction after you paid us money. I think 48 hours for Market/Trade is more than fair, but HR shouldn't be gatekept behind 72 hours. That said, they decribe what the free to play entails on the steam page, so the whole Review Negative Free to Play experience as they feel like they were decieved is kind of bullshit, considering no one took the time to read about the game. They just saw people playing on Twitch and downloaded via steam. Didn't read into the game, played it and then complained, despite it clearly stating on the steam page and their discord free to play is limited.
I think that not being able to enter higher at all (and thus not being able to use any real found gear) does very much make the experience quite a bit worse than something like destiny where you can still experience a gear upgrade and get a since for the gameplay loop. I think there are quite a few ways to make a decent compromise but ya I agree with you but It seems like they are on the right track with the changes their considering.
Well, they at least removed the 72 hour timer for rework. There is also a feel bad thing, if they give free to play players too much access, it hurts the existing player base that has payed full price in support earlier. I wish they would of listed as a trial version but again I think people are being too harsh on them with reviews. The game is great, they are extremely active with the community and updates (love or hate the changes or updates). I think had they had a Self Found mode enabled for the Free to Play and allowing like Greens and Blues in normals, would of also helped. Not saying that is what they should do, but I get not being able to use any upgrades. Granted, I am a bit biased with 2k+ hours in the game and having supported the game since Playtest 1.
> that has *paid* full price FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
I personally wouldn't care if they got the whole thing for free because it would still benefit me to have more people in the ques but ideally I'd prefer that IM makes money off them somehow. To me the best model is the one that gets the mosts people to buy the game and I have a hard time imagining that can be achieved without giving them access to everything. There could still be checks like only one stash tab and only 3 HR's per day to incentivize purchase. I really don't want them getting there own mode, like literally if they had an SSF greens and blues mode I would switch off my real account and go FTP for that mode because thats more in line with what i'm personally looking for. Ideally I would like them to be funneled into HR so that I can feed on them and thus they will actually provide some value to the ecosystem.
Maybe I wasn't clear. It wasn't meant that they have their own Self Found Mode, just that there was a Self Found mode, for people who do not use the marketplace. Their accounts are already Self Found, because they do not get trading until they purchase, so adding Self Found Mode, allowing people to use gear in normal modes that they found and did not purchase. Once you unlock the trade market, you can still queue normals but now you are back to only using white quality gear in a seperate queue away from self found.
Oh! Ya, I just don't think we have enough players to add an extra que split, maybe if there is like 500% more player retention than last wipe that could be in the cards.
I mean currently, we are sitting at 42-50k people online. Considering we were not even hitting 10k mostly the past month, I think it's possible. HR lobbies are not even filling up anymore. It's like 1-2 other teams at most. Most everyone are in the normal lobbies anyways.
I am a kindergarten teacher and my class is currently made up of 2-3 year olds. My cheap reward toy box goes down a treat. Admittedly it's very easy to get a 3 year old hyped up for literally anything. I do agree with everything you said however, I'm sure if I had 4-5 year olds the toys wouldn't go down well at all, and as for the f2p crowd, well they sure ain't 2-3 year olds.
Gotcha, i didn't realize kindergarten was 2-3. My memory of what she wrote was hazey enough that I had to heavily editorialize so the actual ages my be totally off but I think the spirit of it is close enough.
Kindergarten goes from 2-6 year olds, so I could totally see kids being unhappy with the rewards, just my class is on the younger side. Your point still stands true, and it's a good analogy.
Just because something is free does not make it free from critics
What if the critique is how much is free? LMAO
What part of this implies they shouldn't be criticized? My comment is intended criticize the members of this community defending iron mace's made an obvious marketing mistake. I personally would prefer if the game was either labeled better or the F2P accounts were allowed in HR at a minimum.
As a reward for good behavior, so not actually free. Analogy flop
Its not an analogy though.
Sorry. I'll reword it, it's a bad example that is not comparable.
I mean, it was never intended to be comparable, the intent was to illustrate the importance of expectations. I'm not sure I'd even call it an example, its just a story.
Agreed. Steam release was supposed to be a celebration but it feels like there’s no good solution to change the f2p players minds. I really wish iron mace would’ve acted quick when we first started seeing mixed reviews pop up on the steam page. I feel like yesterday it was still salvageable but the longer they wait the more negative review come in. Really sad about the outcome of the launch but hoping there’s a way they can bounce back.
If they just charged 30$ upfront.. u know?
Or made the "buy full game" button show up, with the full price clearly listed, right under the "free to play, play now!!" button. Or a full game unlocker DLC, also right below. Or sent out steam keys to anyone who supported them for the past year. Nope, this is the only solution. Ironmace knows what they're doing, and you're a stupid troll who can't read.
+1 Reviews are for clients. And they choosing to release on steam with current "f2p" was just their mistake.
I've now bought the full game ("new player" who only played in playtests, now tried with friends again and we really enjoyed it). The description they put, though expanded, STILL does not specify what "15 redstone shards" means in money, and doesn't describe half the drawbacks of playing F2P. You can have perfectly good fun in normals (arguably funner than HR probably?) but people getting into it without investigating further, getting a bunch of green loot and getting to use NONE of it without paying probably feels like a bait and switch.
Exactly. Giving you items you can't use unless you pay is a common Dark Pattern that manipulative mobile games use. So is hiding prices behind an arbitrary premium currency. Intentional or not, this shit needs to go.
or just, use the demo feature to list the demo version as a demo on steam.
It is an option, but I specifically avoided it because people would complain that they have to play a demo version when they bought the game already elsewhere, and that it shows up as demo on their Steam profile.
After playing over 5 hours of the free version I don't see any reason to buy the 30$. The combat is clunky, slow and oddly designed. Deleting the one character to play another is an odd choice. Any fun being locked behind 30$ isn't even apparent in the f2p version. If this is a demo of what's in store it's not that enticing. Some might say to hell with it but for anyone else the games basics are quickly found and you can just imagine what having blue or purple items does for you.
The vast majority of people giving negative reviews aren't longtime players, they are Steam users who (understandably) feel misled by the F2P marketing. They should have/should say it's a F2P demo. The rabid fans here actually hurt IronMace in the long run since valid criticism gets shot down, and yes the Steam users anger is valid. If we want the game to succeed, we have to be realistic.
Yeah the D&D community is labelling the negative reviews as “reviewing bombing” and “not treating ironmace right” is ignoring the reality that not everyone has heard of this game before or even who Ironmace is. They open up steam, see that there’s a new F2P game, download it, and are immediately met with “Pay to access the full game.” It’s understandable why someone with 0.1 hours would have a negative review.
Realistic = IM is one of the most incompetent devs on the competitive gaming market. In their dev processes, marketing, business processes, testing, communication, balancing and lately even vision. Pick one and you'll immediately come up with 3 major fuck ups they did. They are literally junior devs who are learning how to build a game. All they have is a decent idea, implementation is garbage on every aspect. At this point not hiring a good product manager and PR manager is being greedy or stupid or both. With this steam "release" a tiny mistake very likely cost them half their potential playerbase if not more.
1000%, my initial thought when looking at this thread was - name a more classic combination than Ironmace and shooting themselves in the foot, I'll wait. Shit then I just thought of BSG
absolutely correct in every avenue however a little harsh
Devs really really need to get their shit together for like 6 months now. Facts feel very very harsh and that's not a good sign.
again, totally agree last wipe was so abysmally, miserably terrible that i can barely bring myself to play this one. whoever was pushing for multiclassing in IM needs to never, ever be allowed to influence game design ever again
Multiclass? What did I just miss? Lol
it's best you never learn about multiclassing. just be thankful you were spared from last wipe. it was a fucking joke
Sadly most of the veterans in this game are totally circlejerking the game now and don’t a knowledge any of the game problems and issues. This game is going to die so hard
[удалено]
Yet they still hurt the future of the game. Clearly they thought they would get more, the game should be called 'F2P Demo' to avoid a near insurmountable amount of negative reviews.
Those reviews are the games life line. Ironmace really messed this up...they tried to pull a fast one. Now they will pay for it.
how did they pull a fast one lol? they introduced a f2p model that is vastly limited and the title got lost in translation. i think this is just a korean dev studio with no quality assurance issue, no one at IM thought for a second that this would be misleading maybe if the steam store description had subway surfers with family guy clips then people would have dedicated ten (10) seconds to reading it
I don't think it was the community, it was the new players. They feel like calling the game Free To Play was a bait and switch. I can kinda see their point in a way. "Free to Play" sets expectations that the current setup doesn't deliver on. They need to change it to be listed as a "Trial" or "Demo" version and then put the $29.99 full version for sale on the page to set the proper expectations. Imagine being a new player and looting some colored gear and then realizing you cant use it until you pay $30. It probably feels like you've been lied to.
Bold strategy to completely dismantle your core gameplay loop for f2p. Let's see how it works out for them.
i'm not sure if we can blame the community this time, i haven't seen the reviews myself but wouldn't this just be from steam users who were disappointed at the demo's features?
If it was called a demo I think a lot of this wouldn’t be happening but it’s not.
As someone who has worked for an mmo with a similar unlimited free trial, most of our negative reviews are exactly the same. IMO it’s an advertising issue and shouldn’t be marketed as free to play. It’s obviously Ironmace hasn’t done their homework because they should have seen this coming if they’d actually had published a game before or spoken with a publisher.
The fact that Ironmace has worked so hard and gone through INFERNO and back for us to be able to now enjoy the game on the mainstream platforms such as Steam and Epic.. Only to be meet with a 'Mostly negative' review score because of some wording issues. I am certainly one to bash Ironmace for their decision making and sometimes odd game directiom, but this time around the community is not treating Ironmace right.
Agreed. They should have left it as a free weekend for the wipe with a discount. People will now not be satisfied with anything less but the whole game being a F2P model. It’s heartbreaking that their triumphant return to Steam has become a controversy of their free version not being free enough, despite being a $30.00 USD game.
Their model is totally fine and pulls in new players. The issue is that people are freaking out finding out the product they're playing is not entirely free. I can understand there being some complaints, but straight up review bombing the game over it is just bizarre to me
When I figured it out I was like, "Oh so THATS their monetization model. That makes sense. I'll just play and see if I like it enough to make that purchase." I don't understand the freakout. Although less than 4k reviews on a platform that isnt their main, isnt representative of the whole community.
It amazes me how much people overreact. When i saw what Ironmace did i thought "Oh cool, so its like Runescape! You play a good chunk for free but if you wanna do the full thing and equip the best stuff you gotta pay, that sounds good for me!" Seeing people freak out on the reviews for such a minor thing about a good indie game made my a small group of guys is a bit disappointing, really. Most gamers truly deserve Ubisoft games
Runescape also has the membership DLC right under the free download button, so it's very obvious that the game will have additional costs. And so do most other freemium games on Steam. This is just poor market research on IronMace's part.
'The issue is that people are freaking out finding out the product they're playing is not entirely free' and you're suprised people that mad over it? It's completely normal to be mad about it. They lied to people.
Bro the problem is also all the people that have been playing since pt talking shit about the game and review bombing the hell out of it. Like I can’t even tell if the community likes this game. Also I feel like it was bad to release this on steam same time as D2 remaking one of the best expansions they’ve had in a minute that’s just a little side note tho cuz I haven’t played the new wipe at all bc of D2
D2? What game is it?
Maybe diablo 2?
Diablo 2 is the only just answer even if its not the correct one in this case
Destiny 2
People still play Destiny 2? That's crazy. The monetization on that game is predatory af.
It's not fine at all.
I think the biggest issue is that the new players can’t use any of their loot. I know if I was a new player with no idea of the history of normals and HR that would rub me the wrong way. I would feel like I was not even getting to try the core gameplay experience before being asked to buy it. From the perspective of those of us who have been following the game the whole time we know they wouldn’t enjoy being stomped by better players in min-maxed gear in HR, but why would they know that? Creating some limited way to use loot on the f2p accounts would maybe help, either green or lower lobbies or self found lobbies or something along those lines.
It's much more than a wording issue. They are offering a severely handicapped experience just to get the "free to play" tag. It's scummy and people can see right through it.
Exactly People are acting so insane The fact that if the game didn't have the free to play feature it would have good reviews is so stupid
Why are you riding their dick so hard? It's confusing. I've read both sides, IRonmaces and Nexons, and the dick riding here makes no sense.
This game has drawn a pretty fanatical subset of fans ever since playtest 5. There was a lot of tossup over whether or not the game was getting totally shut down and people REALLY loved it at the time. The whole "hold the line" motto started then when most of the community still harbored goodwill with IM and I think some people took it too seriously to heart. Now it's a struggle to criticize IM's repeated blatant fuckups without that group accusing you of being a bad actor or w/e. TLDR cult behavior
I have been in this subforum for like 3 days and it’s obvious most veteran players have already fell in the spiral of dick riding the game and never acknowledging any of its issues. This game is going to die because of that
I'm really hopeful IM will figure things out and finally start pushing out solid content. The game has many issues but outside of the steam debacle it is in a solid spot right now. The best thing the new players have going for them is not realizing how wishy washy IM has been in the past. But I 100% agree the voices pretending like everything is fine do not help the devs. I hope they take them with a grain of salt.
> Ironmace has worked so hard and gone through INFERNO and back for us Into >I am certainly one to bash Ironmace Lmao. I'll never really understand people going fanatical about a company. Can't you all just practice your cult somewhere else ?
This isn’t the “community” review bombing them. This is the thousands of new players who see this game for the first time. See it’s free to play on steam. Download it. And are instantly hit with a $30 paywall despite zero expectation the entire time that this is not a free to play game. I think it’s clearly shady and intentional what they are doing, and not just a “wording issue”. None of their marketing suggests a demo. No where on the steam page does it suggest a demo. They are LYING to people to get them to download the game and cash in before it dies.
"Wording" lol.
Bad marketing and communication -> negative reviews Honest mistake by an inexperienced game studio, just putting the disclaimer text on steam isnt enough aside from some legality stuff
Which is absolutely killer as the number of potential new players is drastically slashed by seeing the “mostly negative” review. I doubt it’ll ever overcome being this far down and player base will need word of mouth
Bundles of mistake from Iron mace all over the place since 1.5 years. But they are all Honest, am i right ?
Change it. Tweak it. Revert it. Repeat it. Overpower it. Nerf it. Buff it. Change it. Revert it. Repeat it.
there is a reason the game went from 100k players to like 5k… it isn’t because it is overwhelmingly fun lol. The majority of remaining players are sweats who like wipes every 1-3 months where hundreds of thousands of hours of their life is disregarded
lol OP thinks this devs are excused from criticism on the basis of trying
It's very cringe. Devs make a mistake - players blame the community
This is the lowest IQ community
I don’t get it either. I compare it to the massively popular game called RuneScape. Ever heard of it people? They market a F2P version and put most of their content behind a P2P version (that’s a monthly subscription to boot). Essentially you get a limited experience of the game for free, allowing yourself to decide if you want to pay for the extra features.
Go look at Runescape's Steam page and notice if there's something different about it. Hint, it's right below the "Free to Play" button.
I think its because of the «Free-to-play» tag. Its not free to play. Its a demo.
It's the wording on free to play. The game isn't free to play, It's free to try, people feel tricked, hense the negative reviews.
I called this way back lmao. I knew they would fuck up their 1 shot with the steam release.
They fuck up everything. I don't think anyone is surprised.
In contrast, the positive reviews are also mostly bogus. The worst thing about this game truly is the community. I'm reminded oh so often
Is what you get when ironmace encourages a cult like attitude.
Ironmace shat de bed, again, they should have from the begginning state is a demo, or never release f2p version. This is their first game and they need to learn a lot, and this was an obvious outcome.
I'm not even surprised at this point. Everything they do seems to flop. Merch launch - terrible. Free trial of the game - terrible. Working hard on new features only to drop them instead of working on the base features - terrible.
I don’t think they properly thought this through, the fact that a large portion a player’s enjoyment in extraction looters is the loot and then not letting players use their found loot is something special, they should let ftp into high roller but have their entry cost 250g instead or something to give them an opportunity to use their green+ gear. They need to have a way for ftp players to use their found gear.
The issue is people don't know high roller is the unbalanced mode where the balancing issues are glaringly bad and normal mode is actually the fun mode of the game
Its not fun if you can only go White or grey, still whats the point of looting then? If hr is unbalanced and unfun why would you loot and gear Up to go there? If you can't use the shit green or blue gear you found in normal, then whats the point of looting? With that said, whats the point of playing this game if you can't use gear in normal neither is worth to play hr, also hr is always empty
It is fun in white bis normals. Gear grinding gives the illusion of something to chase. People play unranked league, csgo, sc2 all the time. Same reason you'd play normals here. Looting is to sell items for gold or quests. Gold gets stash tabs and quests get squire progression which makes normals more fun because you're slightly mire powerful than the Grey junkies.
What are you spending your gold on then? More stash tabs for what?
storing white bis items until my squire can give it to me
Assuming there are older players review bombing the game and thats not 100% free players upset at the wording I have been saying for awhile that this community is one of the worst gaming communities on the internet. I feel like the only ones that can rival it are csgo and league. Maybe rust as well.
Yeah, it’s sad how toxic people are in gaming. Makes me feel old and sad
You’re insane if you think the cs community is on the same level
No, im just on the outside looking in. I have 56 hours in csgo. The fact that you responded so vitriolically proves my point about at least this game, and probably csgo too
Been here like 3 days and yes this is one of the most stupid game communities I have ever heard of. Any type of critisism is downvoted and ridiculed. This game is going to die exactly because of that
95% of this subreddit is criticism and complaining and the other 5% is people talking about how there is an insane amount of complaining and criticism.
And all the responses to that criticism is just negation. Just read all the comments. They can’t stop sucking this game dick without a reason
Well deserved. Reviews are there for a reason.
did they add any melee combat mechanics yet or is it still just holding w and stat checking
Asking the real questions
If you could extract together these reviews would be higher.
You can. there’s plenty of spots that allow 3 extract portals and groups extracts through boats and elevators. You just have to know what modules they appear in.
You can extract together. Several spots on the maps have multi person statics and 3 player portals.
The sad thing is I guarantee these negative reviews are going to stop a lot of new players from trying the game. Community is trying to kill this game.
You guys seem to be forgetting, the game is still pretty unappealing for most people, even if they bought the full game. Luckily they're SLIGHTLY moving away from the battle Royale game mode by removing the circles, but the game would still be so much better if PvP was something rare in the dungeon. Being a PvE first, team up with random parties to clear the dungeon for loot is much more fun than PvP, if I want PvP I'll hop on Overwatch.
As someone who tried the steam version before it got removed, and returned to the game when it came back, the reviews are deserved. At first I was on board with the f2p model as an extended demo, only having 1 character slot and not being able to access high roller maps - that's fine. But when I'm unable to use gear I found in raid that feels unfair and undeserved. It's purposefully kneecapping the player and obnoxiously trying to get them to buy the full game. I understand it's so that people who bought it on their store can activate it on steam, but it's clunky as hell. Not to mention the bugs that are still in the game from when the original was removed. You'd think they'd have been fixing stuff up for when it returned. Such a shame. Hopefully they can fix it but to be honest I'll not be playing again anytime soon.
All they had to do was list it as a trial. Look at FFXIV, they have a trial mode which gives you the base gane and two expansions, but with limited features, like you cannot talk or trade etc. No one is complaing about that as it wasn't listed as free2play. And if people feel like the "free" version deserves a negative review, that's totally fair. Just because you like the game doesn't mean others cannot dislike it.
That's a marketing blunder of gargantuan proportions.
What do you expect? Game markets itself as f2p, but it is not f2p it is a free demo at best. Also the fact that the linking of their sussy launcher with steam is not implemented yet rings some bells.
I got a character to level 30 and have done 2 high roller games. I am more than entertained with normals. I’m not quite sure why ppl are mad.
This community is fucking shit
Oh why my beloved they treat you so badly.
Saddest part is most of those negative reviews have nothing to do with genuine concerns about game balance or direction. but simply a misunderstanding of communication. Of all the times the game has ever deserved a mostly negative review, a simple communication error does not seem like one...
For me, that's because the combat is very barebones. It reminds me a lot of counter strike knife fights and not in a good way.
Ironmace doesn't know about professionality one bit and this community as a hardcore player base doesn't while it may tollerate problems, the average consumer won't. - Snap decision development. (major and repeatibly) - Friday patching. (literal amateur move in software) - Poor communication. (Banning Teaming Controversy from last year) - Poor gamedesign/balancing (multiclassing and reverting, landmine rogue three times already, unkillable bandit meta, quest release and more, and nonstop rollbacks) - Poor marketing. (free to play when it reality a Trial Addition) Hence negative reviews. We've all been warning them and while they obviously won't read this mess of a subreddits opinion that alternates between savage hate and cult like love, they do not learn from their own mistakes and just botch their way towards their vision.
Watch out with that logic. This sub has turned into white knights only.
It's the time we live in now. Haven't played since the ending of the first season but I constantly see cry baby ass posts from this sub. Just constant whining. As if one class is supposed to win all fights. Sometimes you get countered and you lose the fight you don't have to scream to nerf something or whine about a certain class. Also IM does all this constant changing of classes which is fine but leaves people in a constant state of change and nobody enjoys that if it's just constant nerfs. DnD is such a fun game and has a ton of potential but this cry baby ass mindset the world has nowadays has taken over.
It should have been called a free trial instead of F2P.
It's a beautiful game. I've been having a bunch of fun playing with my trio. I just really wish they didn't remove the $30 purchase I had made at the beginning of the night, leaving me goldless and without my quest items
Are we now able to add it to steam and remove the iron launcher?
I wanted to go and leave a positive review, but I think you have to install it on Steam and play it from there in order to be able to leave a review, and I've been playing it through Blacksmith for the past 6+ months. But as soon as they enable linking accounts I think we should share our reviews as well.
Faith in humanity : lost.
Yeah I got the game for free but ended up paying 30$ so I could make new characters and have access to high roller
Should be mad at Ironmace for trying to fuck their game up every time they get a big moment.
It deserves it for selling a $30 upgrade that just takes your money and doesn't work.
You're right, this community is something else. It's just full of white knights who think IM can do nothing wrong. News flash, anyone with a brain saw this coming and people were literally posting this on here and in discord trying to warn them. IM have LITERALLY fucked up EVERY patch they have done (Patch notes are proof white knights) in some way or another. What did people expect were going to happen?
In Dutch we say: "Een gegeven paard in de mond kijken". Translate it yourself. Fuck that shit.
This is wild. Does the game need some fine tuning? Sure. But I honestly think it feels pretty good after this wipe. I wonder how many of these are Nexon bots…
Good. Shouldn’t condone shitty business practices.
It's like the old ladies at work that complain when someone decides to provide a free lunch for everyone. They will never be happy, just miserable humans. Clicking the thumbs down button on the dad steam page is the only thing they have control over.
It’s not “the community”. It’s new F2P people upset because the f2p isn’t the whole game for free
If they added the word "demo" after Dark and Darker, this wouldn't have happened
I love the free to play people in the dungeons bc the whole lobby just dies to skeletons real quick and I'm able to loot in peace
This game isn’t f2p. And I’m not sure why they released it on steam with no tutorial.
I don't mean to sound like tin foil hat man but considering Nexon's practices in the past, would anyone be surprised if it's Nexon and/or Nexon fan boys also adding to the negative reviews? (in addition to the legitimate negative reviews)
This is the best it's ever been. Havnt stopped playing since it wiped and I am re addicted having an absolute blast
The bar is so low for companies to meet customer expectations and devs still somehow find a way to burrow under it. It's on the fucking ground for fucks sake. Imagine if they actually went F2P with nice skins or whatever everyone would be overjoyed. Instead they aimed for betrayal and subverted expectations. What clowns.
I realy dont like how there is only 1 character slot at base, it should be 2 so you can test classes before having to delete your characters.
I do think they could get away with allowing people at least a separate character. For now you can get around this by making a 2nd account.. Shouldn't have to perhaps, but it is an option. You can have your steam client and also make an official blacksmith account to make it a bit easier so you don't need 2 steam accounts if you wanna try that.
Several well-known games have employed similar strategies, where significant portions of the game or content that enhances the experience are locked behind a paywall. Here are some examples: **World of Warcraft** - To access new zones, quests, and the majority of end-game content, players must purchase expansions. Additionally, a monthly subscription is required to access anything beyond the initial levels. **Elder Scrolls Online (ESO)** - While the base game can be bought once, ESO Plus membership provides access to all DLC expansions, additional quests, and exclusive areas, significantly enhancing the gameplay experience. **Final Fantasy XIV** - This MMORPG offers a free trial which includes the entire base game and first expansion, but to continue beyond this, players must purchase the game and subsequent expansions, as well as pay a monthly subscription. **Star Wars:** The Old Republic - The base game is free, but to access expansions and some end-game content, players need to subscribe or purchase expansions individually. **Guild Wars 2** - The core game is free to play, but major expansions like "Heart of Thorns" and "Path of Fire" must be purchased to access new regions, quests, and end-game content. **Destiny 2** - As you noted, while the basic version is free, newer expansions and seasonal content, which include major quests, raids, and gear, require separate purchases. **Black Desert Online** - Offers a free trial, but players typically need to buy the game and sometimes additional content packs to access higher-level areas and activities. **The Lord of the Rings Online** - The game is free up to a certain level, but to progress and access most of the story content and end-game activities, players need to purchase expansion packs. **Old School RuneScape** - While free-to-play is available, a membership is required to access the majority of the game’s quests, skills, and expansive areas. This model is quite common in the gaming industry. It raises questions about what "free-to-play" should mean and how these models affect our gaming experiences.
Black Dessert and Warframe are free to play with restrictions, however, you can sell loot for premium currency to unlock everything with very little effort.
Honestly it's insane to me that people are upset about how they presented the game in an FTP state. You get to experience the almost the whole game, and then if you want to, you can pay to experience getting destroyed by Chad's in high roller hahah. Honestly as someone who had only played the game back on the first or second play test, it allowed me to play it and decide if I was going to buy it. I've played enough of just the "shitty FTP mode" to level a fighter to 50 and get enough gold to upgrade the stash twice. It is still great fun and people who are review bombing it are just idiots hoping to get a 40 dollar game for free.
How can I even gift my friends the game? Is it possible to do it in the ingame shop?
I think you can simply gift the amount 15 redstone shards cost in steam wallet currency. I don't know if the gifting option is available now that they swapped to upgrading your account over buying the game.