How our game is going. An optimistic look

Discussion
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Firstly, English is not my primary language, so if something does not make perfect sense, please show some grace. I generally proof read my posts repeatedly.

First, the reviews:
While I was looking at the reviews for my other post about the status of the game, I noticed something interesting. Of course, if you look at the reviews for the past month, they are overwhelmingly negative. As I stated, it is difficult to justify the opinion that either positive or negative reviews are being done by Bots or by some sort of “review bombing.”

However, if you only look at reviews from the past two weeks, the reviews are roughly 50% positive 50% negative. Compared to the prior two weeks, this is a dramatic upswing. For the long-term viability of the game, that is very good news. If that trend continues, the recent reviews will be back in positive territory in time. I would estimate that will be in about 6 weeks.

Optimistically, it is hard to believe the developers will manage to make as big a mistake as they did with the badge update disaster. Unless they do something that astonishingly obtuse again, I would expect the reviews to continue to trend upwards.

Next, the player base numbers:
I am not so optimistic about this, but if I were to try to spin it in an optimistic light, this is what I would come up with.

First, you have to all but dismiss the bizarre explosions and correlating declined in player base numbers. Doing so allows you to see a rather steady player base. It is clearly not growing, but at least it isn’t dying dramatically. Granted, you have to completely ignore that 6300 bump we got earlier. However, a 6 or 7 year old game that is not hemorrhaging players would seem to be a good thing.

Finally, general development direction:
While I personally do not like the omnidirectional movement parts or sci-fi themed weapons, they do seem to hint at a generally unified direction for the game. Doctor Savage hinted at this as well. The future game will look very different than the old one. It will no longer be a post-apocalyptic driving game. It is clearly becoming something very different.

I believe that the developers perhaps have realized that automotive fighting games are simply a very tiny niche genre in the video game world. If you read the reviews and watch the videos of people explaining why they like this game so much, the ace in the hole is that you get to build your own craft. It isn’t that you’re driving a car. It’s that you get to build that car.

What is a huge genre are first person shooter games. As far as control mechanics go, the big difference between them and crossout, is omnidirectional movement. This is true not just of first person shooters, but of many games. Even the sports games have omnidirectional movement. I believe the developers think slowly morphing our game into a hybrid of the original and a first-person shooter is the way to go.

The death of the helicopters, camera steering being introduced, new fast legs, omnidirectional wheels and balls, and the steadfast refusal to nurf the so-called spray and pray weapons all support this idea.

Thoughts?

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The game still fulfills it’s intended purpose for this long time player.

I craft. I ride. I destroy.

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Your English is impeccable. It’s better than what most of us who are born to it speak.

The forum moderator on reddit (Faley) posted a cryptic video of a helicopter build driving a short distance, and then falling over, recently. I’m not sure what that means, but it looks like subtle commentary on how the experiment was short lived and ultimately failed. I think that’s unfortunate. It looks like a lot of work for that project to have just gone belly-up. I’m not sure how else to interpret that video. I’m disappointed, if that’s the case.

I don’t know why the project would be abandoned, if that’s indeed the message, and I don’t think it should be abandoned. However, it is evident that a lot of this game’s features have been abandoned, so I suppose it wouldn’t be unusual, just unfortunate.

As far as their introduction of a common man’s Clan War goes, I’m not sure I can grasp the reasoning. It was obviously unpopular the way they thrust it upon us, unless you ask that one guy who thought it was great. I can only speculate that it is a project unfinished, and we’ll see improvements to it in the future, and already have. It sure isn’t going away.

I had never been a fan of this game’s interpretation of science fiction, until this year. I came here for the old rusty cars, and was a strong advocate for the “Mad Max” theme it used to sell itself with initially, but I like the direction their new sci-fi vision has taken. I think it’s some of their best work, and I could grow to enjoy it.

While I’m not personally interested in their new “Depths of the Wasteland” battle pass, I do think they are on the right track with the format they have cultivated there. I’m glad to see that feature find some regularity and a standard. I hope they continue in this manner, and not change it all around again, like they have done with almost every battle pass that has been released. It’s got good content, looks nice visually, and it’s paced well. It’s worth the $9.99 if you’re a new guy, I think.

This game has a lot of room for improvement, as far as the mechanics go (crafting is tedious, the market is dysfunctional, Confrontation Mode is always unavailable, etc.), but the artwork is always easy on the eyes. This is the one thing they do seem to excel at, and the only thing that keeps me playing.

I just wish they would expand their universe (more maps) so I could immerse myself further into it. I’d love to see them do more with Adventure Mode, for example. I could loose myself in there easily, if there was just more to it.

It’s been a strange year for Crossout, and I do actually look forward to seeing where it ultimately lands this Christmas.

For now, I’m trying not to take is as seriously as I have in the past, and just enjoy the build feature as much as I can. It’s this game’s best feature, IMO. I just wish I had more places to take the strange and beautiful things I can create with this system, and more things to do with them when I get there.

More maps, please? Interactive maps? Farming? Mining? Exploring?

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Well said on all points.

I just saw that Warthunder released a road map for the dev’s vision of the game. I’m hoping this is a sign of things to come for XO.

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I tried for two days to download that game (War Thunder). I wish I could get it up and running, but good grief, that download speed is terrible. It didn’t used to be that way. I’ve downloaded it several times, and it’s never been this bad.

I should go see what you’re talking about. I like War Thunder (Skins!), and I like this game (as frustrating as it can be), and I’d like to be assured that they do plan on going somewhere with this one. I’m not ready to sell the farm. I like my farm…I’d like them to sell me an expansion to my farm.

More maps, please.

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I’ve never had enough room on my drive to download WT, so, never been able to play it. I want to try it so bad, have wanted to for years now but all i get to do is vicariously live through youtubers playing.

I second the motion!

Make it like old school world of warcraft in that there’s the world map (adventure mode) and then there’s the instances, in adventure mode those gates could be the already existing gates around the border of the map.

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Thank you.
I have been told in person I sound like a drunken English university professor. :joy: I find that funny and ironic.

The fact that they tied it in with the badge change and REQUIRED players to participate was clearly taken as a form of bullying. Imagine if they simply added that game mode as an option with unique rewards, then slowly made it mandatory. They’d likely not be on the mess they’re in.

CT Wutong asked last evening what I perceived to be the best thing the devs have done in the game. The attention to detail was my answer - similar to what you’re saying. It’s beautiful. Even the ugly is beautiful. I have played far more realistic games that didn’t have those level of detail and style.

Imagine a game that looks like Crossout, has Robocraft’s build mechanics, and an adventure mode like WOW’s world map!

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If Doctor Savage and I are correct about the company finally coalescing around a unified vision for the game, and that vision is of a morphing of FPS games and the “automotive combat” game Crossout once was, this presents an obvious dilemma.

It’s one many have posted about indirectly.

In a game where omnidirectional movement is key, how do you integrate wheels and tracks?

Imagine the developers of Halo or Battlefield trying to implement roller skates!

Yet, Crossout is trying do the opposite. It has a huge library of “roller skates,” and seems to need to find a way to keep them relevant in a world where we have magic magnet balls, hovering flying carpets, and reiterations of Dr. Loveless’s giant mechanical spider. Max’s Falcon GT Interceptor hasn’t a chance.
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Sometimes I wonder if they have gone through a series of changes in management. Their vision of the game appears to have changed direction multiple times, each time leaving old tenants, like co-drivers, coupons, and Adventure Mode behind, and then applied the new management’s vision over top of the old, without addressing the conflicts, or obsolescence of game mechanics they’ve created. They just paint over it. It’s something of a mess at this point, and I don’t expect them to solve any of the abandonment issues they’ve developed in their game architecture.

Now, with the Battle Passes, they’ve created a fan base who constantly expects to be regularly fed heaps of new guns, modules, and I assumed co-drivers, since I’m still gathering “Intelligence,” that as a currency has absolutely no application any longer, almost a year later (why?). Initially, they said this would be a continually developing feature, but now I wonder.

Maybe it’s their relative youth?

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When I consider how young they all look, I find it easier to forgive them of their fumbles. IMO, it’s pretty amazing what they’ve accomplished at their age. I don’t see a grey head anywhere…lots of sandals too…with socks? Nerds are cool in their own way, I suppose. I do like their product, despite the difficulties.

I think they could manage this through the power-score feature, but it would rattle a lot of people’s cages…not that they seem unwilling to do that. This last update rattled some cages, but they held their ground, same as they did when people pitched a fit about camera steering.

This game has enough material to make at least two separate worlds, maybe more, but maybe not enough man-power to actualize that.

Perhaps they could separate us into different virtual continents (contents) and sort us out that way. In a post apocalyptic world such as they have envisioned, it would be easy to suppose that technology may not be universal, or international, and may have found it difficult to import or export, leaving civilizations in various states of isolated development. The world has always been like this to some degree, and often dramatically so.

They could let us have our “Mad Max” level game “down under” in its native Australia, and perhaps stage a more technologically advanced society in the Mediterranean, an alien element in the west, with a generic military element with tones of G. Orwell in South America, and the Syndicate’s neon underground in eastern Asia. Then they could sort out their conflicting arrangements and features into separate and distinct orders. They could do this largely through menu schemes.

They don’t have the man-power to do any of that, probably. They won’t even expand Adventure mode, and that’s simple map building, static furniture, and randomly spawned NPCs. Bethesda developed software to allow amateurs like me to do this simply and efficiently 25 years ago. I have no idea what Targem’s problem is with expanding that map significantly, or with creating maps in general.

I’d really like more maps.

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I’ve always liked the idea of restricting parts in the battlegrounds based on the games lore of when these items showed up.

Have the scrap battleground take place in the early part of The Crossout, where there’s only the basic weapons to use from white and blues.

Have wires take place a little further down the time line where we get the specials, blues, and whites.

Batteries gets epics, specials, blues (no white tier items allowed).

Raids and Clan Wars are the only place where we get to use legendary and relics.

Now, for movement parts, and i know this would be a hard transition for people but, maybe just maybe…CERTAIN movement parts have a restriction built into them where they cannot be used until a particular faction rolls through the wasteland during a Battle Pass event. Say Bigrams cant be used until there’s a Founders related BP in effect. Omnis/hovers cannot be used unless there’s a Dawn’s Children BP in effect. etc, etc…

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Sometimes I’m not sure if this game really is a game, or a documentary sent back to us from the future, via a time warp. So, I’m not taking chances…lately I’ve been rummaging through my neighbors’ garbage cans, looking for scrap and other resources so I can build a functioning Cyclone and mount it on my truck’s flatbed. :crazy_face:

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perhaps too hopeful

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Maybe it’s delusional to think this game is going to do anything different than what it’s done for the last 9 months, which IMO is a steady mutation into a completely different game. I liked this game and I still want to believe it’ll get better.

It still looks pretty, though, but I can’t get into it anymore. I’m not a fan of Crossout 2.0, and I think I liked it a lot better just prior to the “Supercharged” update.

Wheels still kinda suck, and I’m not feeling the love for the omnidirectional camera steering, although the new Gerrida and Atoms look really cool. I like them a lot better than Hovers for sure, but that’s not saying much. They just aren’t as exciting as wheels…used to be. Not enough rider feed back, boring, but pretty. No rock’n’roll.

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Not so much when so many parts are locked behind years of grind.

Until something starts pushing you(so far they still didn’t fix that)
Also hoevers were more prominent moving option until omni meta… is it flying, rolling or what now game?

That gets quite tricky with all meta shifting, biases and eternal rebalancing.

I’ll give this topic my 2 cents as I recently salvaged my stock and uninstalled the game. Maybe I’ll play it again in future, maybe not.

What is crossout?
It’s a boring pve, constructor where most parts are locked behind pay or grind wall, and toxic pvp.
At one point I realized the game spoils my mood and brings frustration more than it does good.
It’s fun when I have full concentration over battlefield, and frustrating disaster when I don’t.
Chill fun game this is not. Devs lean it ever more into being p2w whales vs nerds contest ignoring the part of actually making a good game. If mmo pvp even can be one.
If you like looking under the hood what devs are and what they are doing, consider this: They are in Russia, and there is a huge risk of economical collapse or cutting of internet access to EU and USA. They probably try to harvest as much money as they can while they can, and leave everything for later, if they even have interest leading the game anywhere in the first place.
They had lore - they stopped investing in it. They made sort of open world adventure mode - abandoned. They tried mechanics overhaul to more arcade - not sure they got what they expected.
Judging from the mugs of devs on the streams, they have lost interest in the game long ago. It’s just a job for them, which everyone knows anyway - devs don’t play their game.
To summarize, everyone have their own position. Roughmonkey enjoys being xbox king of nerds, I had my time having lower ps pvp adventures, some still enjoy their sealclubbing and grinding. It all goes on until you get bored or devs ruin your meta. The game is like the world itself, messed up on one side, perfectly decent on the other, and keeps going no matter what you think of it.

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There is 8 ft of snow outside of my house for at least 4 months of the year.

I craft.

I do a lot of pushing also. It is not unique to anyone.
I call whatever I am in “my ride”. My boat is my ride, My truck is my ride and when I go to Vegas to throw money in the trash, the plane is my ride.

Does it? It’s not hard. Hell I suck because I watch TV while I play and I still usually get 2 or 3 kills.
I destroy.

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This is very much where I am.
I passionately want to find this game enjoyable.

I’ll play, get frustrated, quit, and uninstall it.

After a week or so, I start tricking myself into remembering how fun the game was, so I reinstall it.

A few matches later, I’m frustrated and uninstalling it once again.

This is my Crossout cycle.

It isn’t even based on winning or losing competitions. It’s that this game is not the game it promises to be. Sure, I can craft anything, but rarely is something useful aesthetically pleasing. Unless I log in virtually every day and play for hours, no clan would keep me. Without a clan, I’m largely locked out of potential rewards, and without playing in a group, I’m locked out of a great many victories.

That last part has been exceptionally oppressive as of late.

It’s just not fun.

I want it to be fun.

It’s like being married to a fat ugly smelly lazy wife. You want her to be something else. You remember the beauty of her youth. You love that beauty. You dream of it. For the sake of the marriage, you pretend it’s still there.

Then she scratches her nethers as she farts while serving you leftovers with a hair in it, and you get a malodorous hint of sulfer wondering if she’s poisoned your food or hasn’t bathed again.

This is my relationship with Crossout.

Praise the God my betrothed is not like this!

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Lancer player?

If one wants to play xo with minimal frustration there are raids, invasion and patrol, but that is just dull.

I managed bunch of builds that are both effective and have nice lines. I run unique builds that none else is using, and was able to beat any other builds I meet on fair terms.
But that last drop was some random guy beating my 3xPiercer+IMP build with just 3xPiercers simple meta build. Gave me strong suspicion of filthy devs running some crap scripts manipulating things, on top of obvious team balancing tinkering that makes you loose 10 battles in a row and then win 15. I just got sick of all this.

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I would like to make a flying propeller nugget.

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Yes, sometimes this game feels like a psy-op, and so does the forum. It seems like you have to tolerate a lot of odd psychotic BS to manage either.

I suppose they don’t call us “survivors” for nothing.

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I have creative work that my future depends on, and it is stalling. As it is isn’t work I can do with whatever on my mind, I can only work on it when my mind is set on it, other times I’m just wasting time figuring out why stuff feels weird and how can I sort of push myself into this work that I chose.

This pushes me to this theory, that games like this provide some entertainment for lower class people that can’t afford abundant life. That perhaps when I figure my stuff out and have more money and options I will have better things to do.
But so there is idea that nothing can replace this possibility of making my own build and take it on an adventure fighting other players. Like what would I replace it with? The concept of xo appeals to me very much. On other hand, wasting my creativity and designing efforts on some game isn’t good either. I got plenty of ideas designing things that are just limited by life situation temporarily.
Maybe when I get my life sorted out I’ll be drawn back to xo, maybe not, idk.

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