@lookinin wrote:
I've been following the threads about Steam Blaster. First of all, I respect all the opinions, advice and expertise in this forum, its' very valuable and informative. But one of the common complaints I read in these threads is that the Devs don't care or aren't listening. So I would like to offer some perspective regarding complaints about Steam Blaster:
At the end of October there were about 200,000 players of this game, for PS4 ONLY. As of July 5, there were 1,400,000 players. Not playing all at once, of course. Between June 5 and July 5, 100,000 players were added to the game on PS4. I found these stats at Gamstat.com. It says Xbox has about the same - 1.4 million players. I couldn't find any stats on PC.
There are about 15 topics in the Forums with Steam Blaster as the topic that I could find with about 200 replies. I consider the replies as someone engaged in the topic. There were about 8,000 views but I don't consider views as necessarily engagement. The point being, looking at the strong upward trend in new players since the game launched, the game is successful or at least trending that way. So as far as the Devs are concerned, they're doing the right thing. Why would they change course because of a minority (less that .5% including views, .01% with replies) of player's opinions, many of which come from the same forum members (I'm aware there's stuff going on in Twitter and Reddit but I doubt if it would change the percentage that much).
yes, that's correct but you also can't sample 100 perfect of the player base. I understand you can't extrapolate the 0.01% to the whole community but you can't also ignore that the overwhelming majority of "vocal" community that took time to voice their opinions. It seems pretty unanimous. Almost all the people I asked who I met online about steam blaster agree. I've even got unsolicited comments about it saying how unfair it is. My wife who isn't part of the 0.01% also hates playing against it and says there's really nothing she can do about it. My nephews (both 11 years old) and 2 of their online buddies said the same thing. My 2 other nephews who are 6 and 5 (i think lol) when they play on my account asked me what they can do against it. I tell them run because they won't understand what i tell them or they don't have the hand eye coordination yet. Now they are constantly trying to switch teams anytime they go against a steam blaster so they don't have to go against it lol. So while only 0.01% were vocal with their opinions, I would wager that the majority of the non vocal players share, to a greater degree, the opinions of people on this board. (No way to prove that, obviously, but from my experiencing talking to people randomly, more than 90 percent of people)
I'm sure they do listen but I'm also sure they have their own metrics which aid them in their decision making.
true I'm sure they have all the stats, that's why when people feel like they don't listen, the devs are usually justified in their decisions. For the most part, I think the devs are doing a great job.
That said, I've been following the performance of Steam Blaster for the last couple of weeks and I have yet to see him listed as Vanquish Master on the leader-board - he's always on the leader board as Revive/Healing Master, as it should be.
You're right, he's not often vanquish master but he is always near the top in kill. But you will see him as vanquish master maybe 10-20x more than sunflower. And he is heal master, more than sunflower also. Sunflower is better at keeping 1 player alive but scientist as a whole heals more (points-wise).
That doesn't mean players don't have bad experience with gangs of Steam Blasters. but I've been in games with gangs of Engineers & Heavy Helpers stopping a game cold.
engineer is another topic of discussion that's similar to stream blaster, how braindead his game play is and how to nerf it.
It happens. There's also this critique that it elevates mediocre players. I don't see anything wrong with that.
its the fact that it unproportionately elevates them. That's usually a definition of overpowered, i.e. taking much less skill to use to same or higher feats as comparable weapons. I do like things that can elevate "mediocre" players but not to the point where it FRUSTRATES the other half of the player base.
Skilled players can also dominate a game and leave lesser skilled players frustrated. I was in a game recently where a Cactus had 52 vanquishes
Bit of a false equivalency here, but skilled players usually dominate unskilled players. As a result the unskilled player gets frustrated and gets skilled enough to not be dominated.
Kudos to whoever it was but it didn't feel good playing against him. It's just part of the game and I move on.
Anyway, if you read this thank you
Overall great post and insight. We obviously disagree on some points but that's why we're on this board!
