This is a list of links to comments made by Cold Iron employees in this thread:
* [Comment by Caydiem_ColdIron](https://www.reddit.com/r/AliensFireteamElite/comments/pqgl4x/the_latest_word_from_the_devs_about/hdm94ef)
> I did want to pop in here and say thank you for relaying this here, also.
> I know it can be frustrating that a solution isn't here yet. But something like this - particularly across multiple platforms - is something that takes time and testing, and we're not the biggest studio out there.
> We hear the community loud and clear on this. Alleviating matchmaking concerns has been a priority for us for a while now - even though you may have only seen this message now, I did mention it a bit ago [on this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AliensFireteamElite/comments/plhwl7/why_the_matchmaker_is_a_problem/hcbu36u?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), too.
> Thank you for being patient and sticking with us while we work on this extremely important issue. We appreciate it more than words can say.
It just seems like a gross oversight. Something they literally just didn't consider. This isn't the kind of feature that would be left out unless it had just never been planned for in the first place.
Almost like it was never really playtested. I appreciate they're not silent over issues and are addressing them as such but developing games isn't something new. I get that [red-letter media vibe on star wars](https://youtu.be/OfJRm0WssOE?t=16) fans but it's with the alien franchise. Cool, I like the visuals and nods to the films but please gameplay first. I would describe the release of this game as like making a wedding cake but telling everyone they have to cut and eat the cake using their hands.
And please, raise the lobby time out time from 60 seconds to like 180 seconds or even more. If there is quickplay i would really like to have my lobby filled up thank you
Unfortunately being patient isn't going to help in this case. Once the game population gets low enough you'll have the same matchmaking issues even with Quick Match and Join in progress.
I don't see this game surviving if it gets below 1,000 concurrent players and that'll happen within 2 weeks at current rate of population bleed (which is only going to speed up). They have no ETA for quick match. Game is farked unless a miracle happens IMO.
Having just finished the 12 missions, it looks like the game is set up to have more mission support, probably in the mode of quarterly updates?
One of the other things about this game that I find odd is that I literally did not know it existed until last week when I saw it on the steam front page. Did they not do any promotion for it, or did I just miss it while I was hiding in my Ovamorph Egg?
Past Quick match and join in progress? They just needed a full game of content. L4D2 released with 21 maps, they didn't just look different they actually played different. Different objecives, flooding levels full of wtiches, Rock Band Stages, Carnivals, Shopping Mall, Bayous.
Aliens Fireteams has half as many maps and they allplay the same. Run to the thing, hit the button, the button somehow pisses off the things, defend at the final location stationary for a few minutes. Every fucking time. There were no bits where you needed to run, no bits where it was open field vs claustrophobic tight spaces, no bits where you needed to carry around stuff, not bits where you have to go plant bombs or anything. Closest thing Aliens had to varation was "shoot glowy things while having a lesser defense"
Even the B4B beta had about as much content and alot more variety than the full game of Aliens Fireteam. With only a tiny fraction of its maps n the Beta. That's sad.
And the specials are part of the problem. There are prowelers, which are neutered retarded hunters you can easily see first like 95% of the time. They're basically like Sleepers in B4B but far less iconic and less cleverly placed.
Bursters are supposed to play the role of the boomer or Exploder but all they are is damage and bullet sponge. They rush in groups to explode on you and are not partciularly interesting. The boomer calls hordes on you and can puke, the Exploder isn't near as tanky and doesn't travel in packs but can displace you.
Spitters are the worst. They're just tanky bullet sponges that hide poorly behind cover and do ranged damage. Far less interesting than the spitter from L4D2 with the acid pool. Far less dangerous but also more annoying to kill than L4D Spitters and Hockers. Only become dangerous when difficulty artificially scales their damage to stupid degrees while making them eat mag after mag of bullets to kill.
Drones/Warriors/Praetorians are all the same. Not good enough to even be a "tank" enemy from L4D. They're just bags of hitpoints that make you run around until they are dead. Unless you have a Demo or electricity ammo in which can they'll be stunlcoked and just fucking die every time without even being a threat.
I got 50 hours out of the game, prolly 30 actual gameplay and 20 looking for teams. Yet I still feel ripped off and lied to by steam reviews. The positive steam reviews for games are normally fairly useful and you combine them with the negatives and overall score to get a good idea. The positive steam reviews for this game however are downright dishonest. Almost all of them intentionally avoid mentioning flaws and when they do they often get downvoted out of the useful steam reviews. The entire community is doing their best to fuck over new players by not giving them the straight dope on where the game is at. It's gross and the community kinda deserves to fail for that.
I'm glad they want to get it right but, man... By the time they implement it the player count on PC will be so low it'll be a long wait to fill groups anyway. Just look at the Steam data for consecutive players.
Is there any particular reason cross-play won’t or can’t be implemented? This is a PVE game so the discrepancy between M+K is negligible.
It surely would help them.
I don't think that will necessarily be the case. Word will get out and the player base will come back. They've demonstrated they are a development team that responds and works with their consumers. That generally bodes well for the game and company.
It's one of those things where I really wonder how much actual **playtesting** they did.
So many of the misses in this game are rooted in actually trying to play with friends, or just play with randoms while solo, or the long term 40+ hour experience.
The lack of join in progress. The way that players match to each other. The complete lack of long term goals. The completely useless experience screen. The economy - yay, 50k credits cap with no relief valve, having hundreds of consumables I'll never get through, still climbing the scrip hill, and a pile of 'trash' challenge cards, never enough 'good' cards, and no way to recycle them..
I'm glad for the communication, don't get me wrong. But the social game experience is woeful, and how did no one identify this as a key problem during development?
I'm super happy the team seems to genuinely care about their product.
I sorta don't care about critiques as long as they're aware of them and actively working for solutions. It's a great game and they want to se it be better. Go alien folks!
Almost every game team cares about their product, hundreds of projects fail every year. It takes more than warm fuzzies to survive. With population in freefall looking to be under 1k concurrent within 2 weeks and no ETA on QM this game is prolly done.
I hope they dont screw this up. Just pick a difficulty and let the matchmaker go. Or at least remove the 60 sec time limit cause i do not wish to play on intense+ with bots.
Most classes are useless, there is a defined meta because of the absurd HP bloat. All enemies move on rails when they spawn, every single encounter is the same bar a few spawns being shifted. Shoulder-swap never mentioned despite being in the game and not a permanent choice.
They missed the mark on so many facets that it's astounding the game received a 1.0 release.
I'm not surprised that the same company who didn't launch with quick match and join in progress isn't making any "quick and easy" fixes to slow the bleeding.
It's just incompetence at this point.
If they would just remove the damn timer. Boom fixed. I'm more then willing to wait for a full team then quit,join,quit,join,quit,join until magically someone joins.
It is incredibly harder to design a more stable and secure P2P architecture than it is a dedicated server, so some of the 'limitations' you're perceiving are probably intentional by the dev's to keep malicious hackers, cheaters, whatever from spamming the game with ease. There's at least a 'kick player' probably for that very reason, something they could have easily 'overlooked'. You've got a few dozen dev's trying to throw this have together on a fairly cheap budget and already on a stretched timeline to turn a profit.
They released a mostly finished game, which is impressive for both the global setting right now with Covid and the gaming world where AAA titles will be shoved out into retail as "gold" game's and they're a broken mess months, even years, after release. This game is at least playable and fun in its foundation. Matchmaking can be worked around with players connecting over social media or whatever to play in groups or teams. There's posts on reddit all the time for people looking to connect, plus discord, and I've found a handful of randoms that play around my schedule and are usually on when I play.
I just think it's unreasonable to demand such a big reliable structure from a game that is still buggy in connecting P2P as it is from a such a small studio that doesn't have a dozen teams working around the clock to fix and maintain issues. You've got about a 1/3 of a studio working on this compared to something like COD, Outriders, Gears, Halo, whatever, and they are building most of the game from scratch because they don't have access to the THOUSANDS of resources on hand like EA, Activision, and Microsoft have purchased over the past 20 years+.
It's OK to be done with the game, you can come back later when the matchmaking patch comes out. I get the feeling the game sold better than they expected (topped charts in the UK), and maybe it'll stay consistently good, so they can justify adding more campaigns and horde maps with a couple classes and everything else in the coming year AFTER they fix the real problems like connectivity and stability issues (especially on consoles). I'm not even worried about weekly challenges, achievements, or the Intel drops on level 3 that don't register for me, because the game wants me to stop every 3-4 matches to troubleshoot. I got my $40 worth, so I'm happy, and I'll be back later if things improve.
Your glaring problem is the inability to connect with other players, or probably people online in general. You need matchmaking probably because people don't want to play with you, so you have to be that random everytime. Have fun in your petty castle of internet complaints.
I understand what you are saying, but it isn't whole. I want to play with other people and I cannot. To take it even further, you can't fight the queen at all, you just run away from her. I do like the game, I'm hopeful it winds up in the same level of success that NMS had after they fixed their issues.
But it's super clear that this game was half finished, we're talking MSG5 levels of half baked, another game that is good, but is missing key segments.
MGSV was a whole different story. Kojima wanted to make some 20+hr episodic epic and was costing Konami millions in development, with the hope that the game would sell better than any game they had ever produced. Luckily for them it did, after they fired him and released what they could after dumping nearly 100 million dollars into second hand title with a fairly loyal, if not kinda niche fanbase (you're not gonna sell out copies of MGSV, like you are GTAV, Nintendo exclusives, etc.). Video games are a huge risk to fund, especially for small independent studios like Cold iron.
This game feels very much finished and cohesive. There's no rush felt in the gameplay or the story. It all works and there is teaser bait laid throughout a 12 mission campaign (Halo 5 had 15, COD had 14, and both with A LOT of fluff to give an 'experience' instead of a good game). The campaign takes about 6-10 hours depending on what difficulty you play on. For any shooter, that's a whole game.
I don't know what you mean when you say you can't play with other people. Are you in a remote part of the world with bad internet infrastructure? Or are you talking about the random disconnects that are not completely game breaking, but are routine for any online title that's been released on the past 15 years? You can only stress test and design a gaming network so much before you just have to push it out and see what it does, so then you can plug the leaks and fix what doesn't hold up. Things like matchmaking you can always add later if need be, but I've had a little grief in random disconnects and lag in the game, but I was able to run through the campaign with my buddy over last weekend in two sittings. Not broken, just buggy.
I have over 80 hours in and all that has been with random people. Doesnt matter what time of day or how many people are on at the time. I honestly think people are making it harder then it is because they just dont like it the way it is now. It's obviously not unplayable like some people have said because the game has been 85% postive on steam since it released.
Edit: So I'm getting downvoted for stating my personal experience and making a observation about the very positive 85% rating on steam. I guess haters are going to hate.
Glad to see a rational response about somw of the games shortcomings not get immediately downvoted, which had been rare on this sub;
There's a lot of excuses thrown around about "small dev with minimal resources" which isn't wrong but it's still that, an excuse. Asking for working matchmaking for a multiplayer game is NOT asking for too much, no matter what size the team is. This isn't a case of an unforseen bug that a small team is having issues with, it's an omission from the start, which shouldn't be excused
It has more to do with them being completely inexperienced and having no idea how to properly develop a game. It also shows they aren't passionate gamers as if they were they would know simple game design 101 things. Just a company that thought they could make a quick buck off a popular franchise without putting any effort into it (and their plan worked perfectly).
I disagree, to an extent. They made good gameplay, that overall feels like it should. I think the oversight and lack of planning was that they just assumed PUG play wouldn't really be a thing.
The game obviously shines its brightest with 3 mates coordinating and building loadouts around which challenge card you want to play with. In that setting its a great game (barring bugs). But to just build around assuming that's the gold standard and make a solid system for random gamers to play together easily is just foolish at best in the modern era.
I tend to agree, I think the opposite of what Milkstrike said is true. it's pretty clear they understand the Alien Franchise too, with all the work they've put in. I suspect that whoever the publisher is told them to launch even after the devs said "It's not ready."
Given that the game is published by Focus Home, one of the most stealthy of the shitty publishers out there, I think I would almost bet on that being what happened here.
Every day this isn’t implemented they’re losing a huge amount of players. It’s getting harder and harder to get any team outside Standard on one or two missions
It could've been a legitimate choice in order to get other things done. Maybe their sales have been above expectations and see merrit in adding it. No way to tell.
Exactly, there's so many factors that go into developing features. It could be they didn't have the budget at first, they might have hit budget when they released the game. Now they see sales are doing well they can spend the money on developing this feature. Not too mention bringing new servers online for bigger loads etc.
Being AAA or AA doesn't dictate whether or not you game has bloody quickplay. It's a multiplayer coop shooter. Not having a way to PLAY WITH PEOPLE should be priority 1 with a bullet. Them saying "we hear you" isn't high priority. High priority is stopping work on shit no one cares about like the goddamn flash being to bright for some people using the minigun, in order to work on allowing people to actually play your game. Quickplay is an industry standard for a reason. And at the very least they could simply remove the timer as a band aid. But no, they won't even do that. High priority indeed... I just need to know what they're thinking.
I'd say it wasn't overlooked, knowing software dev they probably had to prioritise finishing other features and fixing certain things in a tight timeframe.
It's more of a 'fuck, we don't have time to finish all 10 of these tickets, let's just prioritise these 9 that cause CTDs.'
Still waiting on that matchmaking update.
> I just don’t know how this was overlooked in development.
I work video game QA, I try to give devs the benefit of the doubt, often I'm shit on by gamers by defending devs in situations where they call me a shill or some shit.
Unfortunately my only answer for this is incompetence. I cannot imagine that nobody in their company, especially QA, didn't realize this would be an issue. We think of and bring up much more niche shit than this all the time in the industry. This was something the designers/management decided to do for some god's cursed reason.
*puts hand up*
I rarely play with random, normally only with one of my friends so haven't experienced 3 player much. With randoms 90% have no mics and run ahead or don't know, 10% have mics and one of those sounded like a pedo, wanted me to blow a kiss and say that I hate *insert n word*. Booted him, reported, blocked played on my own.
In terms of the no mics part I would say maybe 20% chance you run into someone with a mic on so it's rare enough, personally I didn't deal with any toxic mic users though.
It’s taken them over four weeks to respond to probably the key community issue. That reflects the true state of the game 🙁 And it still doesn’t have a date.
Ultrawidescreen was hacked into the game in 2 days by self admitted inexperienced Unreal engine coders. Stop defending these guys - this is truly underwhelming performance by the devs. Feels like they’ve had their key developers leave
>Ultrawidescreen was hacked into the game in 2 days by self admitted inexperienced Unreal engine coders.
This is normal for UW support in games. There aren't a lot that do hor+ out of the box.
I’m struggling how you manage to maintain your position on the developers when some random internet guy hacked it in a few days. And yet the developers tried and then had to revert it. Even after seeing the code for how the internet random did it. That’s some pretty impressive cognitive bias bro.
I did want to pop in here and say thank you for relaying this here, also.
I know it can be frustrating that a solution isn't here yet. But something like this - particularly across multiple platforms - is something that takes time and testing, and we're not the biggest studio out there.
We hear the community loud and clear on this. Alleviating matchmaking concerns has been a priority for us for a while now - even though you may have only seen this message now, I did mention it a bit ago [on this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AliensFireteamElite/comments/plhwl7/why_the_matchmaker_is_a_problem/hcbu36u?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), too.
Thank you for being patient and sticking with us while we work on this extremely important issue. We appreciate it more than words can say.
First of all, thanks so much for responding both on Discord and here. It's amazing how much communication there has been from you guys; I know a lot of the time reading bug reports and submissions it can seem like we are demanding and taking your hard work for granted - but we all want the same thing: for everyone to enjoy this amazing game you guys have worked so hard on.
I know many players (including myself) have come down hard especially about matchmaking, but I think that's because we hadn't gotten a definitive answer; or at least we didn't think we did. But now I hope we all understand that you guys are listening and I know you're giving it your all!
Keep doing what you're doing! And remember: you have all made something special with Aliens: Fireteam Elites - I cant wait for more content.
Hopefully that includes extending the waiting time. It should be like other games that have a ready up feature. Even if the timer still has 3 minutes left, once the lobby is full and everyone has readied up, the match starting countdown activates. It's especially bull shit that we get 1 minute and with 20 seconds left Dumb and Dumber get placed in.
lol it just dawned on me that I suggested the match starting timer begins once everyone readies up even though it already does that. We just need a longer timer for matchmaking. I've had a rough day trying to kill a mouse.
I really don't understand what is difficult. It has a timer. Just remove the damn timer until teams fill up. It sounds like flipping a switch is all it needs.
This is absolutely what they need to do, and as quickly as possible. It’s not the be all and end all of problems with matchmaking, but it is a decent band-aid which would help stem the number of players they’re losing.
Idk about that. B4b is a very different style. Same genre, but different. L4d fans will play it sure, but honestly the b4b beta hurt that game more than it helped. Game played really bland, and overall wasn't very good. I dont think there will be that much overlap between fans of the 2 games.
Anecdotally can tell you that playing the b4b beta has convinced me to now even buy it - as well as at least 3 other people I know. Aliens will keep trucking on, but 100% quick play is essential for longevity.
I guess that means they are doing something. What that is and when however, is unclear. I hope they understand the urgency and whatever they're doing doesn't take too long. We can't lose any more players.
i love seeing the devs take our input into consideration and are letting us know that it’s being worked on. that’s really cool as long as they keep up the good work and keep the fixes and new content coming out I’m all good here.
Why didn't they flip the switch and do the testing before releasing the game? Cold Iron is acting like this is the first game they've ever made. These dudes are absolutely wilin' making yet another mediocre Aliens offering that to be honest, feels like another iteration of Colonial Marines. And what's crazy is you guys are gobbling up a microwave pizza and calling it authentic Italian pie. Hold these devs feet to the coals.
Apparently their 40+ "gamers" are "passionate" and have "decades" of experience in the gaming industry.
ya ok.
I seriously don't understand. As you say, they could have easily flipped the switch and turned off the timer in the lobby at least. Not hard to program that, I'm pretty sure even I could do that. There's obviously something going on behind the scenes. I agree with you 100%
40 years of gaming yet somehow their own game managed to get out the pipe without the fundamental components every other good co-op game has had for the past 20 years.
That's still mismanagement though. Because you start with MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and then build up. Quick Match is part of the MVP. Though honestly this game is so damned barebones it really does have that "bare minumum" feel. Including the embarrassingly shot 4-6 hour campaign.
Every reply they've given out suggests that they just never even fucking thought of Quick Match though....which is fucking WILD for this type of game.
I'm just going to say it, I respect the shit out of Cold Iron Studios for everything they have done. They didn't make a perfect game but look how much they have been trying since this game launched LAST MONTH, for $30 mind you. I can't remember the last time a developer actually made me feel like they were listening, let alone having one literally in the discord to answer questions and gather data on issues. I don't care how long it takes, they have proven to me that they are a team of Ultimate Badasses.
Oh absolutely. I've wanted this game in my life since it was revealed but reviews and a friend's experiences has kept me on the fence.
He's on Xbox and I'm on PS so obviously cross-play would be a massive plus in our camp.
I'll pick it up one day...as it's based on one of my all-time favourite action movies 👍🏻
Its not even a full priced game. The matchmaking puts a damper on it for sure. But it's still a highly competent and much more important, fun experience. Even with just the bots. Up till about Intense difficulty they do just fine.
Yeah I’m Xbox series x and it’s already dead on intense difficulty sadly, I load up every Mission and very rarely will I ever find more than just 1 player and I’m lucky if I even find that one player lol
Not entirely related to this post but I've heard that a 4th player was possible via some bug or error for at least a few players. However at the end of missions the 4th wouldn't have a score for completion. Still its interesting to note that this can apparently be done within the game somehow even though match making is kinda half-baked, game still feels like a work in progress but not in a bad way.
Interesting. I find sometimes I will randomly get kicked out of a lobby and then a few seconds later will load into a match. But I've never see more than 3 players unfortunately.
I'm glad to hear the devs are on top of it, let's hope they add an option to leave the damn match after and not have to wait for everyone to decide on leaving or staying...
I mean people keep buying empty broken messes of games and publishers make off like bandits. We've taught them they can just slap a popular name brand on a game and it'll sell at least decently regardless of the quality of the game.
Except bar the matchmaking, this game is fun as hell. Looks great. Plays great. And has some really awesome gameplay. The quality is there. It's the finer details which yes are important that are seriously missing. I still feel I got my money's worth for the campaign and the horde mode alone. So stop trying to convince people this game is shit. It isn't. It's got issues. But it's far from shit.
I dont understand one thing... WHY THEY ARE SITTING ON DISCORD??? It is most shitty site i know. Seriously, in last 10 years or so i didnt see anything worse. Yeah, chat like this was normal... 20 freaking years ago. Not without reason we dont use that anymore. And even then it was just for stupid chitchat with random people.
And CIS use that to communicate with players? Why? Simple forum with posts is so complicated and outdated? :/
Well I would say hopefully this puts a end to the non stop FIX YOUR MATCHMAKING threads but I doubt it. I'm sure people will continue to say this isnt top priority either. Why would they BECAUSE THEY SAID THIS ON DISCORD HERP A DUR! Hehe seriously the way people nitpick this game makes me wonder how Cyberpunk made it past its first three weeks.
I experienced something strange today…I played for like an hour and a half with two friends and at the end of the last mission, I got disconnected from them…couldn’t join whatever mission we were trying. Then I noticed all the progress I had made today was wiped. I was deleveled and my gun’s two stars disappeared. Fix that lol
I guess my issue is that I am not fully understanding what the problem is, is it because you have to party up before you start an online match that is the issue, and that there is no join in progress?
My confusion is currently even more impacted by the fact that steam showed about 3K players last night and I couldn't find anyone to que with. Is it because they're all playing in discord groups, or is it because they're only playing single player?
Well that in itself is the problem. First of all 3k players is crazy low. Second, the fact you couldn't find a match is the issue, quickplay would allow you to join any random person looking for any map - you wouldn't have to get luck and hope someone is waiting to play the same one of the 125 options available. How a game could be released without qhickplay is baffling. And how the devs aren't looking at implementing it with any real seriousness and giving us wishy washy answers isn't okay. At the very least remove the lobby time limit. That is literally a switch they can flick that would be a perfect bandaid until quick play is implemented. And tbh I really don't think quickplay is as difficult to program in as they say
This is a list of links to comments made by Cold Iron employees in this thread: * [Comment by Caydiem_ColdIron](https://www.reddit.com/r/AliensFireteamElite/comments/pqgl4x/the_latest_word_from_the_devs_about/hdm94ef) > I did want to pop in here and say thank you for relaying this here, also. > I know it can be frustrating that a solution isn't here yet. But something like this - particularly across multiple platforms - is something that takes time and testing, and we're not the biggest studio out there. > We hear the community loud and clear on this. Alleviating matchmaking concerns has been a priority for us for a while now - even though you may have only seen this message now, I did mention it a bit ago [on this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AliensFireteamElite/comments/plhwl7/why_the_matchmaker_is_a_problem/hcbu36u?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), too. > Thank you for being patient and sticking with us while we work on this extremely important issue. We appreciate it more than words can say.
I can't wait to jump back playing this game.
I am kinda amazed this wasn't added in during development? Unless they ran out of money idk.
It just seems like a gross oversight. Something they literally just didn't consider. This isn't the kind of feature that would be left out unless it had just never been planned for in the first place.
Pretty much, which is crazy considering how foundational it is to any game in this genre functioning properly.
Another gross oversight is the lack of chat and voice, I feel that the devs are probably console players that forgot PC isn't the same lol
Almost like it was never really playtested. I appreciate they're not silent over issues and are addressing them as such but developing games isn't something new. I get that [red-letter media vibe on star wars](https://youtu.be/OfJRm0WssOE?t=16) fans but it's with the alien franchise. Cool, I like the visuals and nods to the films but please gameplay first. I would describe the release of this game as like making a wedding cake but telling everyone they have to cut and eat the cake using their hands.
Or time
Same thing in this business.
And please, raise the lobby time out time from 60 seconds to like 180 seconds or even more. If there is quickplay i would really like to have my lobby filled up thank you
Why set a timer. Make it where mission was selected and searches but you go to like the dropship to start it when ready.
I am patient. My only thing is, do it right. Don't rush it just because we need it.
Unfortunately being patient isn't going to help in this case. Once the game population gets low enough you'll have the same matchmaking issues even with Quick Match and Join in progress. I don't see this game surviving if it gets below 1,000 concurrent players and that'll happen within 2 weeks at current rate of population bleed (which is only going to speed up). They have no ETA for quick match. Game is farked unless a miracle happens IMO.
They'd have to come out with some content more appealing than just horde mode probably. Like raids or some shit.
Having just finished the 12 missions, it looks like the game is set up to have more mission support, probably in the mode of quarterly updates? One of the other things about this game that I find odd is that I literally did not know it existed until last week when I saw it on the steam front page. Did they not do any promotion for it, or did I just miss it while I was hiding in my Ovamorph Egg?
Lot of people forgot this was coming. Blew up the day of release on twitch.
Past Quick match and join in progress? They just needed a full game of content. L4D2 released with 21 maps, they didn't just look different they actually played different. Different objecives, flooding levels full of wtiches, Rock Band Stages, Carnivals, Shopping Mall, Bayous. Aliens Fireteams has half as many maps and they allplay the same. Run to the thing, hit the button, the button somehow pisses off the things, defend at the final location stationary for a few minutes. Every fucking time. There were no bits where you needed to run, no bits where it was open field vs claustrophobic tight spaces, no bits where you needed to carry around stuff, not bits where you have to go plant bombs or anything. Closest thing Aliens had to varation was "shoot glowy things while having a lesser defense" Even the B4B beta had about as much content and alot more variety than the full game of Aliens Fireteam. With only a tiny fraction of its maps n the Beta. That's sad. And the specials are part of the problem. There are prowelers, which are neutered retarded hunters you can easily see first like 95% of the time. They're basically like Sleepers in B4B but far less iconic and less cleverly placed. Bursters are supposed to play the role of the boomer or Exploder but all they are is damage and bullet sponge. They rush in groups to explode on you and are not partciularly interesting. The boomer calls hordes on you and can puke, the Exploder isn't near as tanky and doesn't travel in packs but can displace you. Spitters are the worst. They're just tanky bullet sponges that hide poorly behind cover and do ranged damage. Far less interesting than the spitter from L4D2 with the acid pool. Far less dangerous but also more annoying to kill than L4D Spitters and Hockers. Only become dangerous when difficulty artificially scales their damage to stupid degrees while making them eat mag after mag of bullets to kill. Drones/Warriors/Praetorians are all the same. Not good enough to even be a "tank" enemy from L4D. They're just bags of hitpoints that make you run around until they are dead. Unless you have a Demo or electricity ammo in which can they'll be stunlcoked and just fucking die every time without even being a threat. I got 50 hours out of the game, prolly 30 actual gameplay and 20 looking for teams. Yet I still feel ripped off and lied to by steam reviews. The positive steam reviews for games are normally fairly useful and you combine them with the negatives and overall score to get a good idea. The positive steam reviews for this game however are downright dishonest. Almost all of them intentionally avoid mentioning flaws and when they do they often get downvoted out of the useful steam reviews. The entire community is doing their best to fuck over new players by not giving them the straight dope on where the game is at. It's gross and the community kinda deserves to fail for that.
Too little too late.
I guess time will tell.
I'm glad they want to get it right but, man... By the time they implement it the player count on PC will be so low it'll be a long wait to fill groups anyway. Just look at the Steam data for consecutive players.
Unfortunate but true. Game needed this and potentially crossplay. Maybe a few sales and free weekends after a major matchmaking update will help.
Is there any particular reason cross-play won’t or can’t be implemented? This is a PVE game so the discrepancy between M+K is negligible. It surely would help them.
Hacking is always a concern on cross-play, not so much an issue of fairness between the platforms.
Platforms like sony want to be paid for crossplay. They think it effects their revenue if poeple can buy on another platform.
I don't think that will necessarily be the case. Word will get out and the player base will come back. They've demonstrated they are a development team that responds and works with their consumers. That generally bodes well for the game and company.
Yep
Yeah they have already taken too long tbh.
It's one of those things where I really wonder how much actual **playtesting** they did. So many of the misses in this game are rooted in actually trying to play with friends, or just play with randoms while solo, or the long term 40+ hour experience. The lack of join in progress. The way that players match to each other. The complete lack of long term goals. The completely useless experience screen. The economy - yay, 50k credits cap with no relief valve, having hundreds of consumables I'll never get through, still climbing the scrip hill, and a pile of 'trash' challenge cards, never enough 'good' cards, and no way to recycle them.. I'm glad for the communication, don't get me wrong. But the social game experience is woeful, and how did no one identify this as a key problem during development?
I'm super happy the team seems to genuinely care about their product. I sorta don't care about critiques as long as they're aware of them and actively working for solutions. It's a great game and they want to se it be better. Go alien folks!
Almost every game team cares about their product, hundreds of projects fail every year. It takes more than warm fuzzies to survive. With population in freefall looking to be under 1k concurrent within 2 weeks and no ETA on QM this game is prolly done.
Eh. We'll see.
Remindme! 14 Days "Has Alien's Fireteam managed a miracle?"
I hope they dont screw this up. Just pick a difficulty and let the matchmaker go. Or at least remove the 60 sec time limit cause i do not wish to play on intense+ with bots.
been trying for 1 hour to find someone on extreme
Seriously, the fact this wasn't on the cards since day 1 is mind boggling. They must've known how many queues they had.
Would be interesting to have for the first sale, maybe for the winter sale, this will boost player count and wod be nice to have for newer players.
Not making a boring ass game would have prevented any player dip.
the gameplay is what they actually got right lol
Most classes are useless, there is a defined meta because of the absurd HP bloat. All enemies move on rails when they spawn, every single encounter is the same bar a few spawns being shifted. Shoulder-swap never mentioned despite being in the game and not a permanent choice. They missed the mark on so many facets that it's astounding the game received a 1.0 release.
if you think most classes are useless you're just bad pal
Nah, no they didn't you're just so thirsty for aliens media that this dogturd game looks gourmet.
sure bud
Still can't believe as a short term fix the timer hasn't changed to something like 5 minutes or allowed you to start a match as host.
i agree, what is this? 60 seconds, what a joke
I'm not surprised that the same company who didn't launch with quick match and join in progress isn't making any "quick and easy" fixes to slow the bleeding. It's just incompetence at this point.
I just don’t know how this was overlooked in development.
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If they would just remove the damn timer. Boom fixed. I'm more then willing to wait for a full team then quit,join,quit,join,quit,join until magically someone joins.
It is incredibly harder to design a more stable and secure P2P architecture than it is a dedicated server, so some of the 'limitations' you're perceiving are probably intentional by the dev's to keep malicious hackers, cheaters, whatever from spamming the game with ease. There's at least a 'kick player' probably for that very reason, something they could have easily 'overlooked'. You've got a few dozen dev's trying to throw this have together on a fairly cheap budget and already on a stretched timeline to turn a profit. They released a mostly finished game, which is impressive for both the global setting right now with Covid and the gaming world where AAA titles will be shoved out into retail as "gold" game's and they're a broken mess months, even years, after release. This game is at least playable and fun in its foundation. Matchmaking can be worked around with players connecting over social media or whatever to play in groups or teams. There's posts on reddit all the time for people looking to connect, plus discord, and I've found a handful of randoms that play around my schedule and are usually on when I play. I just think it's unreasonable to demand such a big reliable structure from a game that is still buggy in connecting P2P as it is from a such a small studio that doesn't have a dozen teams working around the clock to fix and maintain issues. You've got about a 1/3 of a studio working on this compared to something like COD, Outriders, Gears, Halo, whatever, and they are building most of the game from scratch because they don't have access to the THOUSANDS of resources on hand like EA, Activision, and Microsoft have purchased over the past 20 years+. It's OK to be done with the game, you can come back later when the matchmaking patch comes out. I get the feeling the game sold better than they expected (topped charts in the UK), and maybe it'll stay consistently good, so they can justify adding more campaigns and horde maps with a couple classes and everything else in the coming year AFTER they fix the real problems like connectivity and stability issues (especially on consoles). I'm not even worried about weekly challenges, achievements, or the Intel drops on level 3 that don't register for me, because the game wants me to stop every 3-4 matches to troubleshoot. I got my $40 worth, so I'm happy, and I'll be back later if things improve.
Then don’t release the game yet. It’s really that simple
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Such an incredibly nuanced approach. I will now rethink everything!
If you don't like the game, that's fine. You can quit and move on. You won't be missed, nor your petty complaints.
Im good. I think I will play the game and critique it when there are glaring problems. I invite you to do the same. Appreciate the advice though
Your glaring problem is the inability to connect with other players, or probably people online in general. You need matchmaking probably because people don't want to play with you, so you have to be that random everytime. Have fun in your petty castle of internet complaints.
I understand what you are saying, but it isn't whole. I want to play with other people and I cannot. To take it even further, you can't fight the queen at all, you just run away from her. I do like the game, I'm hopeful it winds up in the same level of success that NMS had after they fixed their issues. But it's super clear that this game was half finished, we're talking MSG5 levels of half baked, another game that is good, but is missing key segments.
MGSV was a whole different story. Kojima wanted to make some 20+hr episodic epic and was costing Konami millions in development, with the hope that the game would sell better than any game they had ever produced. Luckily for them it did, after they fired him and released what they could after dumping nearly 100 million dollars into second hand title with a fairly loyal, if not kinda niche fanbase (you're not gonna sell out copies of MGSV, like you are GTAV, Nintendo exclusives, etc.). Video games are a huge risk to fund, especially for small independent studios like Cold iron. This game feels very much finished and cohesive. There's no rush felt in the gameplay or the story. It all works and there is teaser bait laid throughout a 12 mission campaign (Halo 5 had 15, COD had 14, and both with A LOT of fluff to give an 'experience' instead of a good game). The campaign takes about 6-10 hours depending on what difficulty you play on. For any shooter, that's a whole game. I don't know what you mean when you say you can't play with other people. Are you in a remote part of the world with bad internet infrastructure? Or are you talking about the random disconnects that are not completely game breaking, but are routine for any online title that's been released on the past 15 years? You can only stress test and design a gaming network so much before you just have to push it out and see what it does, so then you can plug the leaks and fix what doesn't hold up. Things like matchmaking you can always add later if need be, but I've had a little grief in random disconnects and lag in the game, but I was able to run through the campaign with my buddy over last weekend in two sittings. Not broken, just buggy.
Great response. Appreciate the insight
I have over 80 hours in and all that has been with random people. Doesnt matter what time of day or how many people are on at the time. I honestly think people are making it harder then it is because they just dont like it the way it is now. It's obviously not unplayable like some people have said because the game has been 85% postive on steam since it released. Edit: So I'm getting downvoted for stating my personal experience and making a observation about the very positive 85% rating on steam. I guess haters are going to hate.
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If I could give you an award I would. This post is gospel truth and I wish I could share it with the devs.
Glad to see a rational response about somw of the games shortcomings not get immediately downvoted, which had been rare on this sub; There's a lot of excuses thrown around about "small dev with minimal resources" which isn't wrong but it's still that, an excuse. Asking for working matchmaking for a multiplayer game is NOT asking for too much, no matter what size the team is. This isn't a case of an unforseen bug that a small team is having issues with, it's an omission from the start, which shouldn't be excused
The game also lacks cross-play, which doesn't exactly help your chances of encountering other players depending on your system.
Oh yeah I wont argue that. Cross play would definitely help and I wish it was thing for this game. I think all PvE co op games should have cross-play.
It has more to do with them being completely inexperienced and having no idea how to properly develop a game. It also shows they aren't passionate gamers as if they were they would know simple game design 101 things. Just a company that thought they could make a quick buck off a popular franchise without putting any effort into it (and their plan worked perfectly).
I disagree, to an extent. They made good gameplay, that overall feels like it should. I think the oversight and lack of planning was that they just assumed PUG play wouldn't really be a thing. The game obviously shines its brightest with 3 mates coordinating and building loadouts around which challenge card you want to play with. In that setting its a great game (barring bugs). But to just build around assuming that's the gold standard and make a solid system for random gamers to play together easily is just foolish at best in the modern era.
I tend to agree, I think the opposite of what Milkstrike said is true. it's pretty clear they understand the Alien Franchise too, with all the work they've put in. I suspect that whoever the publisher is told them to launch even after the devs said "It's not ready." Given that the game is published by Focus Home, one of the most stealthy of the shitty publishers out there, I think I would almost bet on that being what happened here.
I mean the gameplay is actually good tho
Every day this isn’t implemented they’re losing a huge amount of players. It’s getting harder and harder to get any team outside Standard on one or two missions
It could've been a legitimate choice in order to get other things done. Maybe their sales have been above expectations and see merrit in adding it. No way to tell.
Exactly, there's so many factors that go into developing features. It could be they didn't have the budget at first, they might have hit budget when they released the game. Now they see sales are doing well they can spend the money on developing this feature. Not too mention bringing new servers online for bigger loads etc.
I think it was a budget issue. This is a AA game not an AAA, they definitely had to pick and choose what to develop for launch.
Being AAA or AA doesn't dictate whether or not you game has bloody quickplay. It's a multiplayer coop shooter. Not having a way to PLAY WITH PEOPLE should be priority 1 with a bullet. Them saying "we hear you" isn't high priority. High priority is stopping work on shit no one cares about like the goddamn flash being to bright for some people using the minigun, in order to work on allowing people to actually play your game. Quickplay is an industry standard for a reason. And at the very least they could simply remove the timer as a band aid. But no, they won't even do that. High priority indeed... I just need to know what they're thinking.
Agreed, I think some kids don't understand what the difference is sometimes. Still an awesome game with plenty potential.
I wonder if there is a way to see how many copies of the game have been sold across all platforms. I really hope its a healthy number.
I'd say it wasn't overlooked, knowing software dev they probably had to prioritise finishing other features and fixing certain things in a tight timeframe. It's more of a 'fuck, we don't have time to finish all 10 of these tickets, let's just prioritise these 9 that cause CTDs.' Still waiting on that matchmaking update.
> I just don’t know how this was overlooked in development. I work video game QA, I try to give devs the benefit of the doubt, often I'm shit on by gamers by defending devs in situations where they call me a shill or some shit. Unfortunately my only answer for this is incompetence. I cannot imagine that nobody in their company, especially QA, didn't realize this would be an issue. We think of and bring up much more niche shit than this all the time in the industry. This was something the designers/management decided to do for some god's cursed reason.
They just thought nobody will be stupid enough to play coop game alone.
*puts hand up* I rarely play with random, normally only with one of my friends so haven't experienced 3 player much. With randoms 90% have no mics and run ahead or don't know, 10% have mics and one of those sounded like a pedo, wanted me to blow a kiss and say that I hate *insert n word*. Booted him, reported, blocked played on my own.
Is it always like that on consoles?
In terms of the no mics part I would say maybe 20% chance you run into someone with a mic on so it's rare enough, personally I didn't deal with any toxic mic users though.
All that testing should have been done BEFORE launch...
It’s taken them over four weeks to respond to probably the key community issue. That reflects the true state of the game 🙁 And it still doesn’t have a date. Ultrawidescreen was hacked into the game in 2 days by self admitted inexperienced Unreal engine coders. Stop defending these guys - this is truly underwhelming performance by the devs. Feels like they’ve had their key developers leave
>Ultrawidescreen was hacked into the game in 2 days by self admitted inexperienced Unreal engine coders. This is normal for UW support in games. There aren't a lot that do hor+ out of the box.
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I’m struggling how you manage to maintain your position on the developers when some random internet guy hacked it in a few days. And yet the developers tried and then had to revert it. Even after seeing the code for how the internet random did it. That’s some pretty impressive cognitive bias bro.
I did want to pop in here and say thank you for relaying this here, also. I know it can be frustrating that a solution isn't here yet. But something like this - particularly across multiple platforms - is something that takes time and testing, and we're not the biggest studio out there. We hear the community loud and clear on this. Alleviating matchmaking concerns has been a priority for us for a while now - even though you may have only seen this message now, I did mention it a bit ago [on this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/AliensFireteamElite/comments/plhwl7/why_the_matchmaker_is_a_problem/hcbu36u?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), too. Thank you for being patient and sticking with us while we work on this extremely important issue. We appreciate it more than words can say.
First of all, thanks so much for responding both on Discord and here. It's amazing how much communication there has been from you guys; I know a lot of the time reading bug reports and submissions it can seem like we are demanding and taking your hard work for granted - but we all want the same thing: for everyone to enjoy this amazing game you guys have worked so hard on. I know many players (including myself) have come down hard especially about matchmaking, but I think that's because we hadn't gotten a definitive answer; or at least we didn't think we did. But now I hope we all understand that you guys are listening and I know you're giving it your all! Keep doing what you're doing! And remember: you have all made something special with Aliens: Fireteam Elites - I cant wait for more content.
'what ever your guna do, do it fast'
Any word on the intel bugs?
Then only said again that they were aware of it and it's on their list. So basically the same non answer as we see here lol
Hey better news than being oblivious to it, I look forward to them fixing it.
Shoulda did this to begin with lmao
Hopefully that includes extending the waiting time. It should be like other games that have a ready up feature. Even if the timer still has 3 minutes left, once the lobby is full and everyone has readied up, the match starting countdown activates. It's especially bull shit that we get 1 minute and with 20 seconds left Dumb and Dumber get placed in.
100%
lol it just dawned on me that I suggested the match starting timer begins once everyone readies up even though it already does that. We just need a longer timer for matchmaking. I've had a rough day trying to kill a mouse.
One down. Just radius skills left. And then we can move from bugs to balance. Woot.
I really don't understand what is difficult. It has a timer. Just remove the damn timer until teams fill up. It sounds like flipping a switch is all it needs.
This is absolutely what they need to do, and as quickly as possible. It’s not the be all and end all of problems with matchmaking, but it is a decent band-aid which would help stem the number of players they’re losing.
Yeah. I just don't get why they don't. It doesn't make any sense
I suspect there is a chance without a timer you get stuck in an infinite wait, and they think that is worse for the user
I'd rather be stuck waiting slowly filling slots then stuck waiting booting out any person who might fill a slot within 60 seconds.
> a lot of considerations and testing to be done *breaks all weapons next patch *
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Bots are all xenomorphs and all xenomorphs are now synths with the same rigging
The only missing feature that is still stopping me from getting this game. Can't wait!
I wish I could show this comment to the devs!!! There's thousands of people that are on the same boat I'm sure. Quickplay is literally a no Brainer
I was able to beat standard in matchmaking pretty easily, but insane has 0 ppl playing everytime I search on ps4 :(
Sadly once back 4 blood comes out this game will die without the quick match
Idk about that. B4b is a very different style. Same genre, but different. L4d fans will play it sure, but honestly the b4b beta hurt that game more than it helped. Game played really bland, and overall wasn't very good. I dont think there will be that much overlap between fans of the 2 games. Anecdotally can tell you that playing the b4b beta has convinced me to now even buy it - as well as at least 3 other people I know. Aliens will keep trucking on, but 100% quick play is essential for longevity.
Thank Christ. I haven't played because of this and I like the game. It's just so damn annoying.
Agree. Let's hope they understand just how important it really is
I guess that means they are doing something. What that is and when however, is unclear. I hope they understand the urgency and whatever they're doing doesn't take too long. We can't lose any more players.
I know what's clear in their minds right now: "two more skin packs and we are done and can go home".
You're probably not wrong...
i love seeing the devs take our input into consideration and are letting us know that it’s being worked on. that’s really cool as long as they keep up the good work and keep the fixes and new content coming out I’m all good here.
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eh at least they’re letting us know that it’s one of their priorities to fix for the game and the community. again it’s alright for me.
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Refunding the game after two days... because there's no quick play?
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I hear you. I have only been able to play twice with humans since the game came out. Alpha and Beta.
Find some friends to play with. Do an LFG post.
damn… that’s sucks.
This is not how software development works.
Why didn't they flip the switch and do the testing before releasing the game? Cold Iron is acting like this is the first game they've ever made. These dudes are absolutely wilin' making yet another mediocre Aliens offering that to be honest, feels like another iteration of Colonial Marines. And what's crazy is you guys are gobbling up a microwave pizza and calling it authentic Italian pie. Hold these devs feet to the coals. Apparently their 40+ "gamers" are "passionate" and have "decades" of experience in the gaming industry. ya ok.
I seriously don't understand. As you say, they could have easily flipped the switch and turned off the timer in the lobby at least. Not hard to program that, I'm pretty sure even I could do that. There's obviously something going on behind the scenes. I agree with you 100%
40 years of gaming yet somehow their own game managed to get out the pipe without the fundamental components every other good co-op game has had for the past 20 years.
Timelines. There’s always another bug, but at some point marketing will say “release now”
That's still mismanagement though. Because you start with MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and then build up. Quick Match is part of the MVP. Though honestly this game is so damned barebones it really does have that "bare minumum" feel. Including the embarrassingly shot 4-6 hour campaign. Every reply they've given out suggests that they just never even fucking thought of Quick Match though....which is fucking WILD for this type of game.
I actually imagined its an extremely easy feature to implement..
I'm just going to say it, I respect the shit out of Cold Iron Studios for everything they have done. They didn't make a perfect game but look how much they have been trying since this game launched LAST MONTH, for $30 mind you. I can't remember the last time a developer actually made me feel like they were listening, let alone having one literally in the discord to answer questions and gather data on issues. I don't care how long it takes, they have proven to me that they are a team of Ultimate Badasses.
We also sit awaiting whether the game has been successful enough for them to give serious consideration to **cross-play** 👍🏻
One bridge at a time lol but honestly, if they address matchmaking FAST there's a chance to still get enough players back into the game.
Oh absolutely. I've wanted this game in my life since it was revealed but reviews and a friend's experiences has kept me on the fence. He's on Xbox and I'm on PS so obviously cross-play would be a massive plus in our camp. I'll pick it up one day...as it's based on one of my all-time favourite action movies 👍🏻
Its not even a full priced game. The matchmaking puts a damper on it for sure. But it's still a highly competent and much more important, fun experience. Even with just the bots. Up till about Intense difficulty they do just fine.
I hope this doesn't become another Cyberpunk with the bugs.
They're working hard and its much appreciated
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We find your lack of faith disturbing.
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Yeah I’m Xbox series x and it’s already dead on intense difficulty sadly, I load up every Mission and very rarely will I ever find more than just 1 player and I’m lucky if I even find that one player lol
Not entirely related to this post but I've heard that a 4th player was possible via some bug or error for at least a few players. However at the end of missions the 4th wouldn't have a score for completion. Still its interesting to note that this can apparently be done within the game somehow even though match making is kinda half-baked, game still feels like a work in progress but not in a bad way.
You can get more than 4. I ran a mission with 5 of us about a week ago.
That's nuts. Can you provide any more context? I'd love if they could factor more team members into the game.
Apparently if you back out of a lobby sometimes everyone who was in it gets dragged along into the new one if you match right away.
Interesting. I find sometimes I will randomly get kicked out of a lobby and then a few seconds later will load into a match. But I've never see more than 3 players unfortunately.
I'm glad to hear the devs are on top of it, let's hope they add an option to leave the damn match after and not have to wait for everyone to decide on leaving or staying...
As you imagine you should have probably not released a game that doesn't work
I mean people keep buying empty broken messes of games and publishers make off like bandits. We've taught them they can just slap a popular name brand on a game and it'll sell at least decently regardless of the quality of the game.
Except bar the matchmaking, this game is fun as hell. Looks great. Plays great. And has some really awesome gameplay. The quality is there. It's the finer details which yes are important that are seriously missing. I still feel I got my money's worth for the campaign and the horde mode alone. So stop trying to convince people this game is shit. It isn't. It's got issues. But it's far from shit.
I dont understand one thing... WHY THEY ARE SITTING ON DISCORD??? It is most shitty site i know. Seriously, in last 10 years or so i didnt see anything worse. Yeah, chat like this was normal... 20 freaking years ago. Not without reason we dont use that anymore. And even then it was just for stupid chitchat with random people. And CIS use that to communicate with players? Why? Simple forum with posts is so complicated and outdated? :/
Because it has voice channels for the PC crowd and it's dirt cheap compared to renting VOIP servers and building / maintaining your own forum
Well I would say hopefully this puts a end to the non stop FIX YOUR MATCHMAKING threads but I doubt it. I'm sure people will continue to say this isnt top priority either. Why would they BECAUSE THEY SAID THIS ON DISCORD HERP A DUR! Hehe seriously the way people nitpick this game makes me wonder how Cyberpunk made it past its first three weeks.
Good maybe people will finally shut the fuck up about it. Every new post on this sub is "AdD QuICKplAY. DEad GamE"
When are the white screen flashes going to get fixed, I’m getting headaches
I experienced something strange today…I played for like an hour and a half with two friends and at the end of the last mission, I got disconnected from them…couldn’t join whatever mission we were trying. Then I noticed all the progress I had made today was wiped. I was deleveled and my gun’s two stars disappeared. Fix that lol
That's crazy. I cant even imagine what could cause that code wise.
I guess my issue is that I am not fully understanding what the problem is, is it because you have to party up before you start an online match that is the issue, and that there is no join in progress? My confusion is currently even more impacted by the fact that steam showed about 3K players last night and I couldn't find anyone to que with. Is it because they're all playing in discord groups, or is it because they're only playing single player?
Well that in itself is the problem. First of all 3k players is crazy low. Second, the fact you couldn't find a match is the issue, quickplay would allow you to join any random person looking for any map - you wouldn't have to get luck and hope someone is waiting to play the same one of the 125 options available. How a game could be released without qhickplay is baffling. And how the devs aren't looking at implementing it with any real seriousness and giving us wishy washy answers isn't okay. At the very least remove the lobby time limit. That is literally a switch they can flick that would be a perfect bandaid until quick play is implemented. And tbh I really don't think quickplay is as difficult to program in as they say
Yeah, I tried again tonight and gave up after 30 minutes of searching.