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Hello. This humble goon is a designer at Relentless working on Crucible. Been waiting for this thread to pop up. I'm happy to answer any questions I can, pretty much everything about pre-season is public now. Understandable that goons will be skeptical of a game coming from Amazon that fits this bill. I'm here to assure you, biased as I may be, that this game is not generic. It's fresh and you should give it a shot. PS: Summer is more of a Rumble than a Raze.
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May 20, 2020 04:43
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 21:45 |
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demostars posted:when are you adding voice chat It's a pretty high priority for us, we're working on it now. The REAL Goobusters posted:friend i got some bad news about the aesthetics of your game I'd love to hear more specific thoughts. 
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May 20, 2020 07:34
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demostars posted:Ok, I actually have a more earnest question to ask you, since I wasn't expecting that concern to be addressed. If you've been around on the dev team for a bit, what exactly happened with the game over its development cycle? Looking at the Rock Paper Shotgun article from 2016, it looks like the battle royale mode that initially was the primary game concept predates even the release of PUBG, despite me clowning on the fact there's a BR mode a bit in the OP. Did PUBG, Fortnite, and Apex just gently caress you out of having this completely unique game by beating you to market and forcing you to add the other game modes to stand out more? I looked back at the Breakaway game and despite it being cancelled (presumably because it wasn't good), what was shown off looks way more stylized and appealing than Crucible. I thought for a second that sort of style was also preempted by this Rocket Arena game I heard about and played in the closed beta, but I guess that's not even out yet. Breakaway, at worst, would have been called Rocket League with humans instead of cars (so I guess soccer with shooting/an alternate universe American football), and I think that's better suited to create an audience for your first multiplayer game than the buzzword overload approach Crucible has. It just gives off the sense that Amazon is trying desperately hard to create an audience for this, come hell or high water, and I think that will put people who aren't already on board before release off. I'd love to tell you the whole story but I can't actually, I have to reserve that information for press interviews or I'll break exclusivity agreements. But there's a very long and weird story. Buy me a beer if you want the whole thing. Let's just say that Amazon had a few things to figure out before they could make games. When I started on Crucible, PUBG Fortnite Overwatch Paladins Gigantic Valorant and Paragon didn't exist. Seeing all these games coming out while ours was still cooking definitely worried me, but each time one did we took a look at it and (I can't speak for the rest of the team but I personally) said, "This game isn't close enough to Crucible for us to be worried."
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May 20, 2020 16:09
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The REAL Goobusters posted:I think the aesthetics and graphical style just scream generic third person shooter. There’s nothing really about it that jumps out as unique or that inspired. Sorry I can go into it more later (at work rn) but it looks like evolve with a brighter color palette. Caveat: I don't speak for the creative director/design director/art director, who made the decisions I'm about to talk about and not me. My take on this is we wanted to make a game that first and foremost is fun and competitive, and also has a diverse character roster (mechanically and aesthetically) that appeals to a broad audience. You won't hear me admit that it's generic even if I understand why people would say that. Honestly give it a shot though, we find that we convert most people once they sit down and actually play the game.
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May 20, 2020 17:02
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Pretty crazy. The war room is working on these issues, NA should be fixed soon, other regions soon as they can afterwards.
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May 20, 2020 21:29
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We were having login issues for a moment, they should be resolved now. They were able to get a fix for NA, and they're working on a fix for other regions.demostars posted:-A lot of animations are janky or outright missing. When I tried her, Shakkiri seemed to have NO indication of when you were reloading, or even that the way you reload her pistol is to stop firing it instead of hitting R like in every other game. Kirri's pistol doesn't reload. You have to switch to sword. You're pretty down on the game but I'm happy to take all of this as feedback, I appreciate you taking the time to post it
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May 21, 2020 01:00
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I assume you're talking about Heart of the Hives. If you group with the team then you're not able to farm or capture harvesters as well. It's actually better to fan out and kite large groups and get ahead in essence. The team that has a level advantage going into a hive fight gets a strong advantage.
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May 21, 2020 04:58
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rockinsaki posted:words Congrats on winning your fourth round. AH can be steep competition. I'm really glad to hear you gave it another shot and liked it. Kerrzhe posted:i played 4 ish hive-hearts games as Drakahl and had quite a bit of fun hitting people with Big Axe. i won 2 and lost 2, i think, and have determined that the fish lady is a Coward. i like the TTK, i like the art style, i like the character variation, i like the map, i like the gameplay. Point of order, I fuckin love your occasional Capitalizations. Kerrzhe posted:i don't know where you're supposed to take the essence canisters, for example. We could definitely stand to do better in messaging planetary events. You have to take the essence canisters to the drop-off stations, there are typically two in random locations around the map. It doesn't point them out to you as well as it should. Kerrzhe posted:the only problem/bug i had was the quick ping not registering as "enemies here!" even when i click it on an enemy. either my aim is bad (which it most certainly is) or the ping itself needs to be a bit more generous. Kerrzhe posted:the other thing i spent some time looking at was the battle pass. from what i can tell, it seems like the "battle stars" (?) needed to unlock everything up to level 80 require you to do the Weekly challenges, which are locked behind the battle pass as well. I only got 7 points from my dailies (which are free for everyone), and if that amount holds for the rest of the 52 days in the season i'd only get ~36 levels from dailies. i could get another 64 levels from doing every Weekly challenge, but some of those are locked to Alpha Hunters mode, which I'm scared to try out. i don't know if there is any other way to earn battle stars. i feel like there should be more available so i don't feel forced to play EVERY single day or in modes that i don't want to play. Everything you say is true. Don't forget that everyone who logs in during the launch gets 1000 free credits and the battle pass is 950, so you basically get a free battle pass You don't have to play Alpha Hunters to finish the battle pass, there are enough other challenges to finish without it. Playing AH will only get it for you faster. Kerrzhe posted:i'd also like to be able to see the reward tracks for leveling up the characters. i'm not sure how to see that. Yep, that's on the list. Didn't make it for launch. demostars posted:-Despite Shakkiri's missing reload animation being a bug instead of a feature, it should still say "recharging" for your pistol even if the sword isn't out if it is gonna recharge anyway. Yep, that's the sort of thing we're looking into there. Thanks for bringing it up and for giving it another shot. demostars posted:and why am i working for amazon for free lol this is probably the end of my feedback until my paycheck is in the mail Check's in the mail.
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May 21, 2020 09:37
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To those talking about Heart of the Hives being too slow between hives: We've identified a gap in how we communicate the importance of optional objectives to players. The intention is that players spend this time fighting over optional objectives, mainly harvesters and amplifiers. The team that takes more optional objectives does better in fights over the hives. It's similar to how you need to take drakes and baron in League. But the game doesn't tell you any of this, leaving players to reasonably assume that time is empty space. We're aware of this and considering our options. In my games so far I've found that since people don't know about this you can easily take those objectives and win all of your games, especially if you're in a 2/3 stack. If you take uncontested objectives you'll probably win all your games until the meta develops.
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May 21, 2020 22:54
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Yep, sorry about that. That one's definitely a top priority for us to deal with. We identified this before launch and built queue backfill to deal with it, which is why sometimes games stall with 7/8 or 15/16 players connected; it's trying to find someone to replace a dropout. We'll continue to do things to improve here.
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May 22, 2020 02:32
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For Kirri's reflect you point where you want reflected things to go. It does not reflect like light. Summer is one of my favorites for that reason. If you like that about her then also try Rahi, he's a bit more advanced but similarly upbeat.
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May 22, 2020 02:53
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gangnam reference posted:Also can't tell if the essence gains on the scoreboard are busted? Having a lot of games where someone leads anyone else on the team by 20k, but it didn't feel like they captured more than anyone else -- might just be a lack of noticeable feedback making it hard to pin any sort of essence gain to a specific player/event/timer. This was something I noticed a decent amount in HotS with xp gains and inexperienced players, which made it harder to teach proper macro play. Some players capture harvesters which pump experience for them the whole game, or capture hive essence which gives them a 3k boost in one go. We need to do a better job of presenting this data to the player in a way that they understand why they got the essence and how they can improve for next time. Stormgale posted:Battle cadence feels wierd, both in engagements and combat pace: Stormgale posted:3 weapon lady specifically: Tosca (cat scientist (actually Chirt scientist)) is tough to disengage from since she dots you up and then you have to either engage her or you'll die running. So that's her play style. As Sazan (3 weapon lady) the main disengage tool you have at your disposal is your knife; same logic if they're dotted up, and the cloak when swapping to it is just enough to get a dash off in an unexpected direction. Additionally, there are a number of environmental tools at your disposal. The yellow plants are cloak plants. Memorize where they are and you can use them to get a medkit off or make like a tree. The purple plants in the higher parts of the level stuck on the walls and ceilings will fill the passage with slowing/dotting goo, cutting enemies off from chasing you. Thanks both of you for the feedback My suggestions aside, all of this goes into the bucket of things we can explain to the player better so that they don't have these problems from the get go.
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May 22, 2020 07:15
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Yep, all of the issues you're mentioning are things we're tracking and have improvements for in the pipe. Performance especially. You're right that it's usually easier to engage than disengage from fights depending on the hunter. We're tracking how players behave as they learn to make use of the mechanics in the game and we'll turn knobs as things progress. On that particular matchup: Ajonah is supposed to be easy to catch out, but then again Bugg is supposed to be weak at chasing since you deal damage mostly through the turrets. Not having seen the play I would guess that she should have been able to get away, I'm wondering whether she was using her Q (which she can detonate for damage) and squid mines effectively (which apply a slow) and taking one of the stealth plants. She also has a stealth at the end of her grapple as an upgrade which she can use to do misdirections. Maybe she didn't have the upgrade yet?
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May 22, 2020 20:47
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Kerrzhe posted:in one of my games an ajonah was running away from me, and she jumped up onto a ledge above/behind me into some bushes and just crouched and stood still, as if i was a t-rex, but with the incredible power of my regular eyeballs i could still see her just fine lol lol yes Updates immediately if there's an urgent fix (like the login failures some people are having right now) every two weeks for minor changes or updates that can't fall on a season, and every season for major updates like new hunters or game modes. Communist Thoughts posted:my important dev question: lol no lmk if anyone wants to lobby up this weekend, my steam friend code is 8238
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May 23, 2020 16:52
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Hey folks. Lots of negativity in this thread. Goons are a tough crowd. I'll say a few things. 1. Amazon is committed to the long-term success of this game. We're looking for a community of people that enjoy the game. We've been seeing that the longer people spend with the game the higher they rate it and report they enjoy it, and we've been seeing people falling in love it with and coming back to play a lot. I can't say whether the execs are happy but from what I've personally seen a lot of people have found and enjoy it, and as long as people enjoy it, I'm happy. 2. Our marketing strategy is different from Apex. They exploded out of the gate, whereas we're aiming for long-term retention. It may feel in comparison that it means Amazon isn't backing the game as much as Respawn backed Apex. That's not what's happening here. 3. We have fixes and updates incoming for most of the major problems people are reporting in the short term, and for the features they're requesting in the medium and long term. All that said, my offer to play a game extends to everyone in this thread. If you're skeptical and haven't played much yet, I'm happy to hop into a game with you and explain what I see in it. Friend code 8238 I'll be playing a lot this weekend.
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May 24, 2020 18:21
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Thanks for the kind words, friend
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May 25, 2020 10:27
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Lost track of this thread because things have been obviously busy on our end. The Crucible team is committed to improving the game. On Friday we released a large update that resolves a lot of bugs and issues, and updates are going to continue. We have a lot of performance improvements in the pipeline, you'll be seeing them soon. We also have a bunch of updates incoming on UI and UX and new features that players have asked for. On a personal note: despite the disappointing numbers, I believe Crucible is special and has a bright future ahead of it. We're trying to fix the problems so that others can see what we see in it, and I can only hope that once we do people will enjoy it.
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Jun 1, 2020 00:39
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I can't speak for others in my studio, but for me the culture and work life balance at Relentless is moderate to good. In my years at the studio I've had to crunch only in total a month or two, some of that of course being in the last few weeks, generally at critical points where we had no other option. Production does more or less a good job of realistic scheduling. Others have had to do more than I have, but the amount of studio-wide mandatory crunch has been minimal. The studio is also more diverse and generally higher paid than other places in the game industry. I was standing behind the camera for the banner photo of that article, it was a fun day. I would say that most people on the team care a lot about diversity. My last name is Rodriguez so I have a stake in it too. The culture trends toward the better and I hope Relentless does well so we can be a good example in the industry. We're canceling Alpha Hunters effective soon, but we're keeping Harvester Command around for as long as it's important to our onboarding process, so it may not go away immediately or possibly at all depending on how things go. Internal numbers, which are a bit more accurate than SteamCharts, show the game has stabilized. So we'll see. And thanks to you folks for being positive and supportive. Relentless is going to keep pushing on this pretty hard for as long as people continue to show support.
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Jun 6, 2020 17:19
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Hi, your local goon Crucible developer here. It's not under the circumstances I would have liked but I'm glad to see generally positive reaction to the recent news going back into beta. There's a lot of skepticism, which is understandable. We've published our roadmap, which is a subset of things we think we need to do to get back to launch, and it is almost entirely things the players have told us we need. Like Colin said in the recent announcement, we'll know that we're back at launch based on feedback from our public community (as opposed to a small group of 250), and because our metrics show we're ready. Flame lady (Summer is her name) isn't going anywhere, which is good because she's my favorite. In the meantime if you want to have free access to play the game you should sign in now, and I mean like now, because once they flip the switch soon it will be much harder to play if you haven't already logged in. I'm on the team that's updating the design of the main mode (Heart of the Hives) to make it more accessible and understandable, especially to new players. Happy to answer any questions.
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Jul 1, 2020 09:10
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blush
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Jul 6, 2020 04:14
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Rip. Thanks to folks in this thread for not being toxic about it.Phobophilia posted:rip whoever was in charge lost some internal political battle within amazon First thing I learned when I started developing games with big studios was that no matter how obvious it looks from the outside you can never tell what's going on in a studio from the outside and all of your guesses will be wrong.
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Oct 10, 2020 18:08
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| # ¿ May 17, 2024 21:45 |
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No, Jeff doesn't think like that. Jeff was a supporter and there's a very nearby parallel world where Crucible could have kept going.
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Oct 10, 2020 21:56
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