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Absolutely love this!
Absolutely love this!
The survey was badly designed. Given that. the results and their interpretation aren't reflective of the actual situation either. An easy example is that many people chose "saving time" in the sense that many people kill faster on solo than with teammates.
I am not one to abandon the game and overreact over this update, but the survey took place too late and was not designed very well. And those are the facts.
There is definitely a lot of feedback in a few threads about what players meant by "saving time" and it's really great that we are getting I to the nuance of that as we plan for January / February and beyond!
As a solo player, I think we need to learn more about the gamemode before we cast judgment. It may suck, it may not. We'll have to see what forms of slaying etiquette emerge and how easy it is to farm in peace. Randos may be less of a handicap after the update, and we might be able to ignore them outright. I'm not saying we don't need a soloq, but a lack of a solo option may not actually kill the game.
Thanks for saying that.
We mean it when we say we are listening, and that we truly have not decided yes or no on solo q yet for after 1.5.0.
We may very well find that Hunting Grounds is great for multiplayer and that we build something else for solo/private players. Or we may find that Hunting Grounds is more fun if you can queue for private islands.
Time will tell, and I'm very excited to hear more feedback once it's in your hands <3
I am 100% aware that Bunhead cannot say, on the Devs behalf without their say-so, that they will fix the existing solo problems and make Hunting Grounds solo playable.
Bunhead not committing to anything means the Devs have not committed to anything. That is why I am frustrated with the response. It means that the Devs aren't ready, despite all the negative blowback from this stupid decision, to say decisively "We hear you solo players, and we will ensure that you are still able to play this game the way you want to going forward".
Community managers translate Devspeak to PR Speak, but if the PR speak is still "may", that means the Devspeak is still "may".
You're right that we have not committed internally to solo q for hunting grounds in the future, but we also have not decided against it.
We really are listening and want to do what is best for the community and our game.
For 1.5.0 it's too late to add solo/private matchmaking for Hunting Grounds, but that does not mean that we won't add it in the future. We may also see feedback that people love Hunting Grounds as a multiplayer thing, and instead of adding solo to it lean into a different solo q experience elsewhere in the game.
Long story short -- you're right that we have not decided to add solo to this feature, but that doesn't mean it's a no. If it were a hard no we would tell you <3
Read moreFirstly, thank you very much for taking the time go put some serious thought into the feedback people have been giving. I just want you to know that even though some feedback might not be what you expect or were hoping for. Overall, I love Dauntless and will continue to play it so please remember it's not all doom and gloom! :)
However - that being said. From reading the responses I can confidently assume you've misinterpreted your poll. The "saving time" aspect is actually a combined factor. It could be about saving time from the matchmaking system, yes, but I feel the primary reason for saving time is to avoid having to fight a behemoth with 2x health with players who are scratching their balls or lying dead on the sidewalk. That is what saves time.
I've thought long and hard about this and I think I actually do genuinely buy into your ethos of wanting to stick to co-op and keep things multiplayer. So I am actually going out on a limb here to say, yes, agree with ...
Thank you so much for writing this all out, we appreciate it so much. There is tons of great feedback here <3
Ok yeah, I might be really super sad to see Dauntless go co-op-only, BUT still really proud of PHXLabs and had a blast watching this game grow! Fingers and toes crossed this transition goes smoothly for you guys, so smooth that you can bring back solo queues ASAP ;]
Cheers,
Marrakobra
<3
So will it be where there are multiple squads in a hunting ground and you can split up and see other squads? Or will one squad have its own hunting ground?
Yup, multiple squads can be on one hunting ground
What if you want to team up with a friend? So a private Duo? Or Trio?
You can still queue with you and up to 3 friends, but you may have additional people on your island with your party.
So how is health scaling going to work? If I'm the only one fighting a behemoth in a lobby of 10 people... Will I get so person healthed behemoth?
The health scaling will be per fight rather than per island. So if you have an island of 6 people but only 2 people are hunting quillshot, quillshot will be scaled to 2 people.
In the past 2,5 years i was playing in solo in 90% of the time.
After testing it on Experimental I have no objection if you guys dont make a solo mode. Kills are faster, and you get full xp for it, even if u just joined at the end.
And max 6 players can be present on the same islands, and about 3 behe, so if the instance isnt crowded you can still solo behes.
I'm so glad you got to test it out and that you're enjoying it so far!
Finally, wanting to avoid strangers is a concern for some, and we understand that. Some players just don’t want to interact with new people. We want to remind players of the mute function in our game, just in case. And if you’re worried about an unpracticed team scaring away a Behemoth, they no longer flee to another area, which means you’ll no longer have to chase down your target twice.
This misses one key aspect. Avoiding strangers isn't just to mute unpleasant people or because of scaring away a behemoth. It's also that the people who've been at this a really long time don't want to get stuck in a situation where they're "hard carrying" an "unpracticed team" that simply wants all of the rewards without having to participate. Are there any plans to address that portion of the concern?
That makes a lot of sense and I agree that is frustrating.
Our main focus in 2021 is returning to community feedback (rather than focusing on big overhauls or features) to tackle feedback like this <3
Even if u cant add solo per say.... How about make so only friends are able to show up in your instance. Whether it be by invite only (more then just the host of it should also be able to invite people till it caps) or them just being thrown in when they queue up. This game is overly infuriating when u play with randoms that just want to leech, or so ill equipped that they get danger up and except a free carry.
What we doing about the afk farming people? what are we doing with the people that refuse to use stims? what are we doing to keep veterans sane from people being completely incompetent at the game to a infuriating degree?
The idea about only friends loading into your instance is really cool. For AFK people we are only granting parts etc. to people who interact with the behemoth. As far as stims I am not sure -- do you have a lot of people not using stims? For people being incompetent, we have rebalanced hunts a bit to favour team play. I am hoping this tackles some of this concern from the get-go. We will be balancing and tuning once it's in players hands of course as well.
Read moreIf I may give few other reasons why I solo/private hunt, besides the ones given in your post:
- Learn a Behemoth and improve myself. There is not such things as "taunt" on Dauntless. Which means, the only way to get full attention of a Behemoth is being in a 1v1 combat. This way you can truly experience the moves of a Behemoth, learn the dodge timings, learn his morphololy. I wonder how this learning will be truly possible in a fight with 6 players, where some of them may just cross the combat field to go somewhere else. It's sometimes already the case in a 4 player group, where the Behemoth never focuses you.
- Teach new players things about Dauntless. A bit like the point above, when I want to show and teach mechanics to a new player, I always bring them in private hunt. Now with the training grounds, they can learn weapon moves in an adequate place, but dodging, booping, move learning, needs to be done against a real Behemoth. And once again, the easiest way t...
This all makes sense, and we definitely hear and understand your concerns! Thanks so much for writing this all out. It's really helpful to point to specific needs and wants of the community as we talk about how to improve Hunting Grounds / the game in general once 1.5.0 is out.
Just make sure your aware, you "WILL" lose a sizable chunk of the playerbase as a result of this.decision to force multiplayer on everyone. I can't say the percentage, but I'd wager it creeps into the double digits at the least. I myself will definitely play a lot less as a result, but likely won't quit, so I don't claim to be one of them. (Unless the new gamemode is just awful or something.)
Edit: To clarify why I personally would play less, its because of the game's scaling of behemoth HP based on players present. I can kill behemoths in under 30 seconds solo typically, but add in a few random players and suddenly it takes much much longer to kill things. Basically other players are a hindrance, not a help with how the game is balanced. Now if you did some form of match-making to where I was always placed into matches with nearly equally skilled and geared players, that would be a WHOLE different situation. As suddenly things get faster rather than MUCH slower.
Thank you for the clarification, that makes a lot of sense and is a good idea
Why not leave Patrols and Pursuits in the game but make them private only? Meaning you can only do them as a private queue. Then just add the hunting grounds as is. Then both parties get what they want and all play styles are supported. This makes everyone happy.
That's an interesting idea! Will bring it up with the team for sure.
I suggest to add more options to matchmaking, and I mean, to choose the power level of the players to matchmake with. This is because a recurrent problem with late game players, who wish to save time trough private hunts, are concerned about the forced public matchmake: that it will increase their hunt times considerably, due to having to carry multiple players at once. Choosing who to matchmake before joining Hunting Grounds would be a possible fix to this issue.
Edit for clarification: lower power lvl players shouldn't be able to matchmake with high level players until they hit that specific gear score
That's a great point!
This is.... kinda shit if I'm being honest and is the kind of response I would expect from Bungie of "we hear you. but tbh we don't really give a shit and might change something in a year"
In-case you didn't know, OCE is pretty dead during the day, even in the evening finding a group for something you want to run take upwards of 5 minutes, or it just out right times out and tells you to try again.
forcing out a main playstyle ain't it chief...
We do hear you and we all care a lot about what is being said here.
It's true that we are locked in to what the next patch will look like, but that doesn't mean feedback about Hunting Grounds and solo q will take a year -- in fact the major thing we will be focused on in 2021 is community feedback rather than predetermined big features and reworks.
We can't action on the solo q feedback in time for 1.5.0, but that doesn't mean we will not action on it in early 2021 depending on both feedback and live data.
Read moreI think you guys misunderstood the "to save time" argument. It's not the loading screen. It's random ass people with 0 skill slowing down kill times because they have no idea what they're doing. And I, as a veteran, endgame player, just want to kill fast and gather resources in the most efficient way possible. I don't need to be grinding for this one weapon and have either newbies or leechers on my back just doing nothing.
Sure I'm sounding like a moron but that's the truth. If you want to reinforce coop play, then you gotta do some serious reworks to behemoths, cells and the overall meta. In a game where you can literally take 0 damage, relying on others isn't as needed, as you can just power through anything yourself. Builds need more diversity and behemoths need to be a bigger threat if we want to enforce coop play. Hyped for H escalations, hoping that getting picked up becomes more of a trend in it.
As a side note, to drift away from all the negativity...
I definitely understand what you're saying! And thank you <3 we are definitely listening. Even if 1.5.0 can't incorporate this feedback it is being talking about a ton internally about how we can address these concerns once the December patch is live.
This all makes sense to me.
To put your mind at ease a bit, we aren't saying no solo q or private matches ever -- we are saying we will not be launching Hunting Grounds with solo/private matches, and we will gather feedback and data once it's in players hands to guide our next steps. That may very well mean that we add solo/private matches in early 2021, or it may mean we bring solo/private players value somewhere else in the game. Totally depends on how it goes once it's in players hands <3
Read moreI have seen many times that the dev team wants to make this game a more "social" game.
The problem I see is that they are overlooking an existing aspect of the game that could have already been utilized to make the game more social. I am referring to the in-game guilds.
By their very nature, and in virtually every other game on the market, guilds are the social element of the game. However, in the case of Dauntless, the dev team has put a 100 member cap on their membership and has not given any tools to the Guild Leader / Officers to monitor their guild.
By "tools", I mean things like the ability to see which guild members have been in-game in the last day, 7 days, 14 days, etc... We can "sometimes" see when a guild member or a friend is "online" but with most PC players logging in via the EPIC Games portal, that does not mean that they are playing Dauntless. Too many times, people will join a guild, but then go days without playing the game, or wors...
These are really cool ideas!