Evolve now Dead

[Stoney Mason]

All the videos I see are the monster staring at the ground eating sheep while the other dudes walk in circles until they run into each other and then it's a Destiny meat shield boss fight. Is that Hunt mode?

Hunt mode is a monster chase. And its the signature mode, they've always shown. It's the 4 hunters chasing the monster across the map. And its alright every so often. But I don't think it should be the signature mode of the game the way, they've promoted it. I think they have promoted it this way because its the easiest to understand because its very simple and shows off the concept but it also can be the most frustrating because the monster isn't incentivized to fight the hunters. It's more to his benefit to run and eat for the first 80% of the game so he can evolve to level 3. At that point he needs to go destroy a generator. So 80% of the match is chasing with one final big showdown that you'll probably lose if you haven't been able to catch him a few times. And if you have a crap team or even one really bad player there is potentially a good chance you haven't been able to catch him and do any real damage.

Evacuation puts that mode in a campaign with three other modes called Nest, Rescue, and Defend. And those others do a much better job of switching up the formula and evening out the experience. In hunt as a hunter you are on the offense 80 of the game and defense 20 of the game. But the other modes switch up that formula and in rescue for instance its really fluid. One moment you are on offense. One moment you are on defense. Both sides have immediate goals so its to no one's benefit to just do the same thing for the entire game.

I don't mind hunt as a variation game type in evacuation, but there is no way I could just play that mode solely as the multiplayer of evolve, and I think they've kinda sold that mode as the game from the marketing.


Here is a link that kind of explains evacuation mode.


http://evolvegame.com/news/evolves-evacuation-explained

[AdmiralViscen]

That does sound better. I will have to watch some more videos. Why the fuck do they promote that boring other mode?

[toku]

I would totally take a chance on this if it was $30 dlc aside. I could eat $30 but not $60. Watching some yt footage and the most recent GB stuff it looks alright if you've got a decent team or play monster.

[Stoney Mason]

I would totally take a chance on this if it was $30 dlc aside. I could eat $30 but not $60.

I think the game could actually have done good business with a free to play model and that probably makes the most sense to me. Outside of that yeah, I think waiting for a steep discount makes sense.

That does sound better. I will have to watch some more videos. Why the fuck do they promote that boring other mode?

I don't hate hunt as part of the mix of modes in evacuation but yeah as the signature mode of the game by itself, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

[benjipwns]

Left for Dead was pretty fun for like 2 days then it's the same thing every time.

I expect this game will be the same.

L4D was. But L4D2 was not. (Partly the former is due to the latter.) But 2 shows the brilliance of the core design that was in the first game because of how quickly they were able to iterate a more complex, larger scope and superior game off of the originals basics. If they hadn't done the first game, they probably wouldn't have realized what they could do in the second after adjusting the tech to handle it. I'm glad Valve sacrificed the first game (and its tech) for the second.

Hard Rain may be Valve's pinnacle sequence.

Evolve, like Titanfall and Destiny and some of these other recent "basics established" games are going to thrive or die on how they iterate off the core idea that's so good (or not ymmv.) And not just in sequels. I personally love Frontier Defense's reworking of the core Titanfall concepts for example, Evacuation sounds like it helps rework Evolve. TF2's continual addition of modes and not just maps did a lot for it before F2P/hats.

I do think that lends itself more to a $20 or less + $10-20 expansions model. Than $60 + $20 maps like Call of Duty does. A number of indie titles have taken this approach of $15 games + free weekends + steam sales + $15-20 total of expansion content to do quite well. The two Sanctum games I heard did very well on this model and even better as they increased the sale discounts.

I think they would need to do like a free weekend when they release the expansions though. That way people can demo the new mode and get addicted and buy it. Or insert one map of the new mode for free or so on with the rest of the maps/mode unlocking when you buy it.

Of course I have a feeling this means you'll go to buy Call of Duty: Advanced Black Ghosts 7 for $60 with domination for $20 and hardpoint for $20 and search and destroy for $20, etc. And nobody will still play those modes. 

[Stoney Mason]

https://talk.turtlerockstudios.com/t/a-message-to-our-community/87816

Going Free 2 Play.

I always had a soft spot for this game.

[benjipwns]

Will definitely pay for it at that price. (Was pondering around $5 since I have some friends who own it but never played it.)

I think stuff like Blops III and Siege's "starter packs" coming a month after release are going to be helpful to these multiplayer-mostly titles. And then an eventual F2P movement before the next release after they've exhausted DLC to keep the playerbase.

Or something like EA did for Titanfall (and BF3/4/Hardline to a lesser extent) giving away all the DLC.

[benjipwns]

lol reads year and a half old post above Stoney's, realizes he basically suggested the "starter pack" model already

[Stoney Mason]

I think Evolve was unfairly targeted for its DLC practices relatively speaking. But I think DLC in multiplayer shooters in general has been under fire rightly. The approach of selling these DLC map packs that split the community in general are a bad idea and Evolve for whatever reason got the brunt of the hate train for this even though its dlc policies were better than the typical COD game.

But Halo, Overwatch, Rainbow 6 Siege, Titanfall 2 etc have changed the game. People want map packs for free. Make your money off other cosmetic stuff in the game.

[Positive Touch]

really really hope it works out for them. left 4 dead was one of my favorite games ever, but i never played evolve bc i wasn't going to spend money on a game that could completely die at any moment. hopefully this brings in a lot of new players.

[Stoney Mason]

lol reads year and a half old post above Stoney's, realizes he basically suggested the "starter pack" model already

Yeah it was obvious from jump. It just didn't have enough traditional multiplayer shooter content that people have become use to. That doesn't make it a bad thing or a bad game or a wrong approach for a game. But it wasn't a $60 dollar game.

[thisismyusername]

https://talk.turtlerockstudios.com/t/a-message-to-our-community/87816

Going Free 2 Play.

And unless they change the below, nothing will change in terms of playerbase:

I think Evolve was unfairly targeted for its DLC practices relatively speaking.

No it wasn't. You even stated the main problem with the game:

I'm probably gonna repeat myself from what I said in the alpha and beta threads but I'm too lazy to go look and read what I posted so fuck it.

This is probably the most bi-polar experience you can have playing a shooter in years. You can play for 2 hours with group after group of incompetents (and it only takes one bad team-mate to let your entire team down unlike just about every other shooter) and just hate the game. It will feel unbalanced. Certain modes you will just hate. And you will just feel utterly frustrated and disillusioned that your team could ever take down the monster.

Then you get into a lobby with friends or just randomly happen to get the ever-rare good team-mates and the game is a blast. You get to play your role. And bounce between your different responsibilities and the game feels like nothing else out there on the shooter market. It's not really about your gun skill like nearly every shooter. It's about your decision making and how you use the tools your class has when you get into the heat of battle and how the rest of your team, does the same.

It's almost impossible to recommend at full price because the bar for enjoyment is so high. If you enjoy playing the monster at least in that case, you are self-sufficient. But if you prefer to play as the hunters, it means you are bound for a lot of frustration unless you find 3 good people to always play with.

It's a niche shooter, for shooter nerds who may be bored already with the other shooters on the market. That's by definition not a large group of people but I dig the game.

Game also should have shipped with a visible ranking system to base the matchmaking on.

The highlighted is the major MAJOR issue with the game and has been since the concept. If they can't rebalance it to where player skills in public games aren't "stomp on either side" like it was in the beta and launch, it's not going to pick up new players.

This doesn't mean it needs to drop what it's doing currently. But it needs to retool to where player skill levels are "balanced" and on even footing. At launch, unless you had a team of 3 to go with you: You shouldn't bother playing the game. Now, from what they're saying they understand this Grand Canyon skill gap is a problem and they need to fix it.

Edit: The "DLC shitstorm" was just the icing on the shit cake. Most people would've probably ignored the DLC and continued to play if the matches weren't blow-outs and/or frustrations. The core gameplay was flawed way before the DLC plans were announced.

[Stoney Mason]

I would agree the game was very punishing unless your team was co-ordinated and good. It was a punishing experience for randoms if the monster knew what he was doing. Even if the skill gap was lowered there though it was never going to be as popular as some other shooters. It's a niche experience. It's a cool niche. But niche. Same as the current horror game that is essentially doing the same thing.



The reason why left 4 dead was able to get away with this is because it had a strong pure co-op element to it and its zombies which are just popular in general.

[bluemax]

lol reads year and a half old post above Stoney's, realizes he basically suggested the "starter pack" model already

Yeah it was obvious from jump. It just didn't have enough traditional multiplayer shooter content that people have become use to. That doesn't make it a bad thing or a bad game or a wrong approach for a game. But it wasn't a $60 dollar game.

It's pretty hard for anyone that isn't a major publisher with a strong IP or a legion of fanboys at their beck and call to sell an online only FPS for full price in this day and age.

[thisismyusername]

I would agree the game was very punishing unless your team was co-ordinated and good. It was a punishing experience for randoms if the monster knew what he was doing. Even if the skill gap was lowered there though it was never going to be as popular as some other shooters. It's a niche experience. It's a cool niche. But niche. Same as the current horror game that is essentially doing the same thing.

Sure, but I feel like that skill gap actively hindered the game way more than it should've.

Take Left4Dead's versus mode, that was pretty popular (IIRC) at the time when 1 AND 2 were new and before the community of die-hard drove casuals away by being toxic dumbfucks. You had a team of 4 on both sides of wildly various skill levels but for the most part even if one player wasn't the best, it wouldn't actively kill the game for the rest of the players. Where-as with Evolve's 4v1 gameplay, if the "1" or one of the "4" sucks, it impacts the game way more than it should.

It's like Turtle Rock never played the game outside of their development house during the beta or E3 events and saw how casuals/new players faced them and went "hmm, that may not be good. We might need to tweak the balance/skill-gap range so everyone has fun."

And yeah, I feel like Dead By Daylight is gonna be the next Evolve situation if it has that skill-gap/public game problem. From what I've heard, most people enjoy it even if public though... so it might avoid the trap that Evolve ran into.

[Stoney Mason]

It's like Turtle Rock never played the game outside of their development house during the beta or E3 events and saw how casuals/new players faced them and went "hmm, that may not be good. We might need to tweak the balance/skill-gap range so everyone has fun."

There probably should have been two playlists. One balanced around a casual mode that most people play that was more forgiving. And a competitive mode that would be closer to what shipped as the default mode that a smaller more serious hardcore group of players could have played.

[thisismyusername]

I don't know if doing that would fix the problem. If anything, it'd confuse players because suddenly after like 12+ hours in the "casual" mode the things they learned there wouldn't work in competitive.

IMO the 4v1 concept is flawed. It's why I'm leery about Dead By Daylight since I heard about it. I didn't get into the beta because Evolve's beta and various skill-level gap/balance really soured me on that concept. It's "novel" in the case of it being new and different, but if it isn't "fun" even if I'm losing, why play? It's where Overwatch succeeded for some of the casual/non-hardcore FPS players: They can pick it up, play a class/hero they like and enjoy their rounds (outside of community which may drive them away. Too early to tell there). Evolve didn't have that "hook." Dead By Daylight seems to, but I wouldn't know just yet.

[benjipwns]

Take Two's focus testing and stuff said it was going to be huge, that's why they were pushing it so hard. It was supposed to be one of their new pillars. And part of why it has so much DLC.

I understand why Activision doesn't price Call of Duty's DLC better, they basically expect the games to die off with the next one anyway.

I kinda like how Siege is doing combos of free DLC + paid. I mean, if we're going to do paid, they're tossing in new stuff for free. Like I mentioned above, new modes/etc. give a map or two for free and people will pay to get say all the maps for that mode if it's a pack of like ten. It's somewhat like Valve used to do with like when they would introduce payload or arena, it'd be just two maps at first, then they'd dump ten maps for the mode in subsequent updates. Though it was free obviously.

CoD's three maps + one for whatever the zombies clone is for $15 is actually kinda shocking at this point. Especially since they never discount it seriously when they do the games. I think the entire Black Ops II game was cheaper during the Steam sale than one map pack.    And Ghosts comes with a free map pack! (Which is funny because if you ever try to play Ghosts because you're insane and forget why it's so strange, it's like a 50% chance you land on the one map from the map pack, it's like the games own Dust2.)

[toku]

saddest part about CoD map pack situation is you can tell a lot a work goes into something but so many never get to see them.

[benjipwns]

Raven gets stuck doing a lot of those.

This was the first search result, from 2011:

Activision Blizzard have sold 18 million Call of Duty: Black Ops map packs report Gamasutra . The numbers, along the fact that Black Ops has sold 23 million copies were revealed during an 'Analyst day' conference call. The figures far exceed those of Modern Warfare 2 (11 million map packs, 19 million games sold) and World at War (9 million map packs, 9 million game sales).

These results mean that, between DLC and the initial cost of the game, the average player has spent $76 on Black Ops.

Can't find sales figures after that though.

Seems like they might be better off slowly bundling the map packs into two for price of one, then all for price of one, etc.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I can't be the only one that from day one didn't see "hit" written all over this, unlike L4D.

I'll try it for sure if it's F2P on PS4 too.

[toku]

I'm a bit biased since I hate asymmetrical mp games but yeah, I never saw it going over well.

[Stoney Mason]

[Rufus]

19 gigs, this'll take a while...

[doctavius bonbon]

Playing with shark atm

I'm actually having a lot of fun this time around, surprisingly. Grabbed the game for cheap off of G2A to get founders status too.

[Stoney Mason]

https://talk.turtlerockstudios.com/t/our-final-message-to-our-evolve-community/106117/2

 

[benjipwns]

It's just that Turtle Rock aren't working on it anymore, which would be expected except that they rebooted it as F2P. They're working on a sequel/new game.

It’s been four months since we began the Evolve Stage 2 experiment, and in that time the team at Turtle Rock Studios has worked tirelessly to improve and expand the experience. The result is the best, most complete version of Evolve ever. Today, Turtle Rock finishes development on the project and has transitioned day-to-day server operation to 2K, as we take the operation of the Evolve franchise fully in-house.

Evolve Stage 2 will continue to be free-to-play on PC and players can expect the in-game experience to remain the same, as we continue to experiment with the business model.

Q: Are Evolve Stage 2 servers staying online?

A: Yes, Evolve Stage 2 servers will remain online for the foreseeable future running the latest version (v2.16) of the game.

Q: Will there be any more updates to Evolve Stage 2?

A: No future updates are currently planned, as development on Evolve Stage 2 is complete.

Q: What happens to my silver and gold keys?

A: Nothing regarding your silver and gold keys changes and both will continue to function as normal.

Q: Is Stage 2 coming to console?

A: 2K will continue to evaluate the possibility of bringing Evolve Stage 2 to console, but maintaining and growing the game’s audience on PC is the primary focus.

Q: Are console servers staying open?

A: Yes, everything regarding the console version of Evolve remains the same.

[Positive Touch]

$20 says this game is offline before the end of the year

[benjipwns]

They never figured out the hook beyond the four survivors vs. a more powerful tank aspect.

Tanks aren't scary in L4D after the first few times, especially when they're alone. It's a tank in the midst of everything else that's going on.

Right when it went F2P was probably the only time it was really any good because there were lots of players and the game was still balanced based on the updates to the original game. Which they immediately broke. And letting everyone put up the dome in F2P made it beyond silly because they then went and unbalanced practically everything in response. And then made it even worse once they got the payment model in place.

[chronovore]

$20 says this game is offline before the end of the year

No bet.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Battleborn is next

[benjipwns]

Do you mean next to go F2P? Because it's already pretty dead.

I think F2P might benefit Battleborn more than Evolve because it's not just a competitive shooter. Even if the quests and stuff are fairly garbage. People seem to like that kind of thing.

[Cerveza mas fina]

F2P then dead, problem is with these failed games they can't move to F2P quick enough to make it.

[chronovore]

F2P then dead, problem is with these failed games they can't move to F2P quick enough to make it.

More than that, F2P MUST be part of the game's core design. Changing from for pay to F2P is remarkably difficult.

[Stoney Mason]

F2P then dead, problem is with these failed games they can't move to F2P quick enough to make it.

More than that, F2P MUST be part of the game's core design. Changing from for pay to F2P is remarkably difficult.

Yep. The successful free to play games are constantly updated and refreshed to keep interest high. The bailout plan of trying to salvage your big budget game that failed by converting it to a f2p model doesn't work because they don't take it seriously and consumers know that.