u/CrowbarCollective

We'll look at the % for the drops. We don't want it to be the dominate strategy, but we also want them to be fun. The game has tech to make phase 2 and 3 give better drops, so maybe we just bump those numbers up.

Thanks for the post!

Yep. Don't disagree with any of the feedback. Like I said in another post we could potentially do some mini bosses and spice up some units. I also have some ideas to streamline utilities , but we'll see when we have time to give them the love they need. Also we've always wanted to do missions the require a special tool to progress (we'd just have to clearly signal to the player they need X equipment).

Awesome. Glad you enjoyed it :)

Thanks for the thanks :) Yeah the mixing and matching of all the different elements is important to getting the variety. Even small things (that I may have mentioned before) like adding a mini boss. Maybe a 10% change to spawn a super heavy on a hard level? Something to surprise players.

We are also looking into adding a mid campaign Raid, and we have some ideas to improve the Strike missions. Some smaller stuff with the big stuff to help the mix. We'll see what we have time for, for the next update.

I think we pared it down a bit. I've not had a chance to play it myself for a while.

We are working on getting the map in-game for the players to leverage. It will be simpler than the one in Due Process, but we want players to be able to see where they are, where things of interest are (meds, stash rooms, etc), and we may look into a subtle line to help guide players to their next objective to keep the pace up.

Hey there. Using a Custom Camping, and turning off the crosshairs/hitmakers will be the same as having them in the default campaign. Hope that helps and let me know if I am misunderstanding.

Let us know if the latest update helps with the disconnects. We did a ton of work to fix it.

We don’t plan on updating how the backpacks work outside of any quality of life fixes we find. Thanks :)

Honestly, I am floored you would put 30 hours into our game. Thanks for playing, and check out the new update. I would make me very happy if the team's hard work got you a few more hours of fun out of the game :)

Thank you. Let us know what you think of the new update and what you might be looking for in the next update.

It does a bit now (damage curve and unit counts). We want to do more testing solo, and we plan to use settings also used in the custom campaigns to refine difficulty for all player counts :)

Thanks!

Big fan of the game. I've been jumping in and out over the last few weeks and had some specific questions I wanted to ask:

• What does the "finished" version of Rogue Point look like for the team?

Speaking super broadly, a few different ways for the player to change up their run on their own. Maybe campaign modifiers, skill selections, or simply choosing different guns to roll with. On top of that some more variation in the campaign (more raids, better strike missions, the new map we are working on). Then having a way for community maps to get into the mix could be huge for the variation of the campaign.

• I’ve noticed in my playthrough the AI often ignores cover entirely to charge the player. Is this an intentional design choice to keep the pace fast by the team, or there's plans to make them play more realistic by making them actually taking cover?

Sometimes it is intentional to keep the pace up or to put pressure on players at the extract. We’d like to make sure their cover selection is good (sometimes a lot of their body is sticking out) and we want to see if they can respond better if they are hit WHILE in cover. Not sure if we could have them use half cover while extracting and seeing the player, but that might be interesting.

• The game is clearly built for co-op, but the low player counts make it hard to find a squad sometimes. What’s the actual plan to get more players?

Our newly released server browser will help with this a lot. We realized there was a painfully small window for players to find lobbies and join up, so the team did a TON of work to allow for mid-mission joining.

• What is the team’s number one priority for the next few updates?

AI, new Clinic map, planning map viewable in-game, to name a few.

Yes. We did a bunch of work to get the foundation in ages ago and finally are able to dive into controller support now that the latest update is out :)

We’ve made a few small changes to help solo play, but honestly we need to test more solo as a team (if that makes any sense). We did just release the new campaign modifiers, so let us know if you find settings that work well for solo. We could set those as defaults for players starting a new solo campaign.

We did not, in fact we forgot to remove it from the map data table so if you were to go looking through the game files…

1. What was the reason for choosing publisher instead of doing independently like you did in black mesa? How many original members are still there with you? Will the studio keep acting autonomously regardless of team17?

We needed development funds. We set up Black Mesa to reward the DEVELOPERS, not the company, and while that has made our lives as a company harder, it was the right thing to do.

Of the 15 full-time people at Crowbar, 7 are from the Mesa days, but 10-15 have contributed in ways big and small.

Yep, that is the plan, but we are looking into all kinds of options as we go forward. As I said in another response, the industry is always changing and we all have to keep up.

1. How will you accomplish tactical elements when it comes to enemy characters? Not just enemy types and factions but their behaviors, coordination with other enemies, usage of equipment and squad composition etc matter a lot. Speaking of composition, what's your principle of setting hostile npcs' number? (Personally speaking, if someone choose horde shooter method that could deviate from tactical genre unless it's fine tuned accordingly.)

A big part of AI being tactical is them LOOKING tactical. I don’t think it is a secret that a lot of what AI does in games is smoke and mirrors. As our lead programmer Elliot says, truly smart AI would be extremely frustrating for the players. We’ve been trying to pull back the AI “cheating” while also using information from the players/world to make them look smart. There are a bunch of “small” things we would like to do. Make sure they don’t get stuck in places. Make sure they are not using cover nodes they are not supposed to. Have them do things like call out smoke grenades or maybe even flashlights. We have a ton of great voice lines for them, we just need to hook them up and make sure they are not spamming the players :P

For the unit counts, we pretty much just do it by feel (and have some math to scale units based on player count). I think we try to cap the units at 40 at any given time to make sure the host’s computer does not get overloaded.

1. Are you considering to add friendly AIs like classic rainbow six, ghost recon or SWAT4? It's coop focused game; even so, having AIs to command really helps me to deal with challenging situations.

That’s not currently on the road map. Friendly AI is a pretty massive undertaking and I am personally super impressed with games like Ready or Not that have basically a whole strategy game ON TOP of their tactical shooter. It is very cool, but not something we are pursuing, unfortunately.

1. More gadgets to utilize such as drones, breaching wall charge (some form of bigger environmental destruction) in the future?

We always wanted to add drones for spectating players. It’s not on our to-do, but you never know…

Thanks for hosting ama and i am looking forward to seeing how the development progresses. Mix of old counter-strike and rainbow six was something i dreamed of.

Thanks for the questions. I’m a big fan of Rainbow Six Vegas and an even bigger fan of Rainbow Six 3.

Generic, but I hope a few are worth asking (not expecting all to be answered):

1. What games would you say influence Rogue Point the most mechanically?

Hum, tough to answer as we referenced everything under the sun. I’d say Rainbow Six 3, Payday 2, Left 4 Dead, and Escape From Tarkov (they have a lot of advanced weapon systems that we stole ideas from and simplified down).

1. Are there some categories of weapons you hope to bulk out or add?

We have a bunch of weapons just about ready. These include a full auto pistol, shotguns that could be used as a secondary weapon (needs testing), and at least one additional big boy rifle.

1. I recall mentions about wanted to expand on the player characters more, specifically women. What are the goals for adding new options? Additional VA's, skin tones, so on?

We have sadly had to put this on the back burner for now. Nate and Ash did a bunch of work to pilot the system, but we had to focus on other aspects of the game. This is a big downer for us because everyone should be able to deck out their operator to roleplay as themselves OR as someone else :(

1. How much does player feedback shape stuff like the ADS changes and timer removal?

It’s huge. Not only do they play the game at a scale that the team couldn’t, but they generate ideas we would not have come up with on our own and it is extremely valuable. 

1. What do you think the right balance between developer intent vs player demand is? What does catering too players too much look like? Is it difficult to block out bad faith complaints?

Our philosophy is to be data informed, not data driven. It’s important for any dev team to drive the design and not be too reactive. What is the community suggesting that we have not considered? What are they suggesting that fits with how we want to design the game? We don’t really see many bad faith complaints. Different players want different things, and it is up to us to deliver a good game based on their feedback.

1. Can you share anything about future bosses or their mechanics?

Well let me do the Uno Reverse… If we were to put a boss into the Oil Rig, what type mechanics would you think he would have?

Last notes: Thank you for the work and dedication for the game already. As a fan of terrorist hunt type modes, it is nice to have a co-op game which is a mix of arcade with a solid mix or more realistic features. I can only speak for myself, but the balance is good. It can feel both like playing an action movie at times with the absurd particles and flashy fights while still rewarding care and attention in fights. I have had a blast playing with my partners. Also, seeing cyberfox diligently respond to reviews and be active in forums has been really nice to see. It means more than just talking at the playerbase.

That means the world to us. Seriously. I’ve forwarded this to the team to make sure everyone sees it ;)

There may be a scenario where we need to reset the game, but the goal is to keep all the progress players have earned.

Ha, good question. There is an old joke “Becomes a game developer, no longer has time to play games”. I think it is hard for anyone to keep up with games especially as you take on new roles and responsibilities.

It can be hard to turn off the analytical part of your brain when you play other games. Sometimes it is fun, because you can see how the game is trying to direct you and what the designers were up to. Other times, it takes you out of the experience. BUT if a game is really good, you’ll stop overanalyzing and just get lost in it, and that is a great feeling.

Thanks!

First and foremost, thanks so much for making the game! The days of Rainbow Six Vegas terrorist hunt were good ones and I'd love to see this game continue to develop in that direction.

1. There is a pattern in comments and Steam reviews discussing the game's balancing attempt between tacticool realism and fun. In my observation it seems some lament the pull away from SWAT 4 or Ready or Not-level precision while others want it further toward Helldivers. As developers, how do you respond to that? What kind of game did you set out to make? Has the community response been surprising and do you plan on making any more fundamental changes or offering more mutators or options in response to the continued feedback? If so, how?

Tone is something we learned a lot about in the development of Rogue Point. If your screenshots look like Ready or Not, but your game plays like Helldivers, players are going to notice. We started out much more as a simpler version of SWAT 4, but as we iterated, we leaned into a more arcadey feel. Our goal from the start was to have a nice hyper-real highlight pop to the art, and to make a game you could easily jump into with your friends, and moving away from “Tactical” helped with that. The community response hasn’t really surprised us, as it is something we have been trying to nail down internally. What has surprised us is just how hard it is to communicate tone and vision on your Steam page :P

1. Expanding on that, how has the team felt in response to sale figures on Steam and the current state of reviews? I have reviewed the game positively and I and friends have bought multiple copies, but is there anything else the community can do to support the game? Are sales figures in a good-enough place to support continued development? What does the roadmap look like now? What would a wishlist roadmap look like with more reviews and more copies sold?

Thanks so much. Really buying the game, participating in community events like this, and leaving positive reviews is all we could ever ask for. It’s above and beyond. I’ve actually made a note for myself to leave more reviews for smaller games I really like, because it means so much to developers. We’re hoping our first big update continues to improve the reviews of the game and we have some milestones planned and in progress to continue to support the game regardless of sales. We did some previous work to get controller support blocked in and we are diving back into that. We also have support for community content planned, which would be great for the game. It’s our job to update the game, set the tone, and bring players in, and we hope they enjoy what we make.

1. Speaking of balance, there appears to be a meta advantage to silenced weapons + laser where the first round is always pinpoint accurate and often deadly. This sometimes makes maps easier walking with the default pistol + silencer + laser + hipfiring rather than using a dead drop or rifle, and frankly invalidates a lot of the tools and items. Any changes planned there? Admittedly I think I've had more fun doing this and trying to line up headshots than spraying with unsilenced rifles.

That’s actually great to hear. We have struggled to get silencers to a place where they don’t just look and sound cool, but are actually useful. We might have to test more with suppressors to see if they need a damage nerf, or something along those lines. If someone takes the time to unlock a suppressor (even for the Austrian 9mm), I would not be opposed to it being a little OP as a reward for playing our game.

1. Any upcoming game mechanic elements you can share? Sliding, climbing, rappelling, breaching, AI changes or improvements, etc?

Oh man, I would love a power slide, but that would be a bit of scope creep as we never planned on having it in the game. We are also working on permanent player progression so that things like grenade number and other loadout/operator attributes get expanded as you play. We think it will help give players more of a reason to dive back into a new campaign.

1. Any upcoming map, objective and game mode elements you can share? New maps, horde mode, new objectives, etc?

We’re working on the new Clinic map to add to the campaign variation. We are also working on getting the planning screen in game which is a big request from the community. Check out the latest patch notes too. We are really proud of the amount of things we were able to add for fixes, features, and content.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1843840/view/500603187551537988

1. Any upcoming structural changes you can share? Mod support, level editor, etc?

Yep. Mod support is in the road map and we are looking to add a new boss as well so that it is not always the same one each time, and not always the same location each time as well.

Thanks!

• Yep, we are working on adding permanent player progression. It’s something the community identified as missing if we are trying to tap into rogue-lite aspects. We also want to continue refining the systems we have and diversify our skills a bit.
• 1.0 is the planned final update for the game.
• I think it is fair that players expect a lot of content for their money. Some of the play time we have seen from players has been amazing, and much higher than we ever expected for the initial release. We want the game to be easy to dip in and out of, but giving players a reason to play again is definitely an overarching goal. New systems, a new map, a new boss? There are things we have planned and things we can expand to make that happen.

It is really tough out there, and it literally hurts to see people getting laid off on a pretty regular basis. We thankfully have a publisher that insisted we plan for funding leading up to 1.0 for our game.

Speaking broadly (and this could be a full essay) the industry has been shifting for a long time and it is on all of us to adapt. It’s not ALL bad and a lot of the parts that are bad are due to a lot of questionable decisions about six years ago :P 

There are some GREAT, well known IPs that are getting blockbuster releases, and on the flip side there are some micro sized teams creating NEW IPs that are super exciting. Currently there is not a lot of room in the middle between those two ends of the spectrum, which I think kinda sucks, but it is the reality.

It’s up to us to highlight what needs to change, acknowledge the good, and stay positive as we interact with one another in this crazy world.

Yep. We are working on a pass with the latest tech.

This is extremely cool. Shared with the Crowbar team! -Adam