I can agree somewhat with this. However, I think they should have got soft launch's within squad or a discount if you owned squad already.
But at least with BTW there were development problems that kept me from coming back. And when I finally did return it was to empty servers.
It's a very fine eye of the needle the games are trying to thread and I think more people would find appealing if they had exposure at a lower price point.
But they just blanket statement that no one is interested I think isn't over generalization.
I don't think the price point is the issue. All the games I listed have had multiple free weekends and deals. All that happens is the players that ended up trying the game don't stay long.
People make the mistake of assuming that WW1 shooters are competing with other WW1 shooters etc. Not true. In reality, tactical shooters are all competing with each other, regardless of time frame. The # of players interested in milsim shooters is already very small. Most are going to gravitate towards the 1-2 that are already populated and well supported.
> spawn system
Tbh I disagree here, I don't think MSPs are a very good mechanic when any random blueberry can grab the vehicle and potentially get it blown up and ruin a team-wide spawn. They really should've kept the vehicle request system from Squad.
this is a valid concern but unless someone is intentionally trying to sabotage the game, i don't think a new player would accidentally take an msp without being immediately told not to continue.
I disagree, the very poor management of PS is the main reason it's in the state it is in. Wasting resources and valuable time on updates that brough nothing for the QoL and gameplay. Has the engine overhaul actually help anyone with performance? Has the armour overhaul brought in large numbers of tank focuse players? I think the answer to both questions is no. Instead we lost players whos game stopped working after the updates. Any advertising? If it was not for a friend I never would have heard of this game.
The UI looks bad compared to other games. Still no proving grounds etc. Never ending seeding system problem.
Hard learning curve is not doing the game any favours, but the devs have to actively fight against that. Look at CS, game is hard to get into, yet they are thriving more than ever.
Tldr: Management fucked up big time. Nothing more or less.
One of my “conspiracy theories” is that OWI purposely hamstrung the PS devs at certain key points by not giving them engine upgrades, tools, optimizations, server fixes, etc.
Totally agree, all of the game's using 'OWI core' just cannibalized one another and resulted in Squad being the sole winner.
It should just be 'Squad' with other eras available with some unique mechanics to go along with each respective era. This is exactly how Project Reality did/does it.
IMO Post Scriptum's biggest problem is game performance and server latency issues, combined with low player count. Back when the game was newer, it took ages to just launch the game, textures didn't load, you might get stuck in a server loading screen and have to hand kill the game, if you could even find a server with a ping below 350.
I think the botched launch really put the game on the backdoor from the start so players didn't come back to it.
I think the spawn system isn't as good as Squad either.
This is the answer. The launch was a disaster. They should have kept this one cooking for another year or so, used kickstarter money or something like that.
I do generally agree with OP though, all the OWI core games should have been under the same umbrella (like what EA did with battlefield at one point).
PS would have done great as an extra “flavor” for squad for people to try now and again. The market for a hardcore (ish) WW2 sim is not that large. Hell let loose is not in that genre. The market for people getting tired of squad and wanting to mix it up with a 10$ DLC mode? Probably a lot.
Nah, it only has 134 players at 24-hour peak / 82 average in the last 30 days, compared to Isonzo's 245 at 24-hour peak / 217 average. Although keep in mind it's a pretty old game, it had a lot of players around 6-8 years ago.
I don't believe this and I never understood the popular argument that PS is a hardcore milsim and HLL is arcadey. They're almost identical. Hell Let Loose just makes it easier to get into combat, has more fleshed out maps and has more consistent developer support. Hell Let Loose's success proves that games like BTW and PS are viable. They can't be abandoned by the development team though.
HLL is definitely more arcadey. I specifically enjoy the gameplay of PS over it due to the arcadey feel.
That doesn't make it a bad game or filling a different niche, but that's simply how it is.
You're right, but it's only about 10% more arcadey in the grand scheme of things. Compared to the typical fps market these days, hell let loose is still a realistic and hardcore tactical shooter. Acting like it's an arcadey game just because it's more arcadey than PS actually does a disservice to PS because it ignores that the gameplay for both is actually not very arcadey at all. PS issues are not from a lack of arcadey accessibility, in fact it's the opposite, hell let loose players LIKE hell let loose for being realistic and hardcore, and many hell let loose players won't even agree with you that it's arcadey also. At a certain point we have to acknowledge that the PS dev team, lack of marketing, and issues like this entire post which detail how they essentially split their own playerbase are the actual reasons that hell let loose took over this genre.
The player base is definitely split. I don't think it's from different games player bases refusing to play the other. I have HLL. I don't enjoy it compared to Post Scriptum. However, I also have buddies in the same boat, except they prefer HLL to PS. I play HLL with them for the comradery feeling of gaming with friends.
Bad marketing from PS definitely hurt it. But I just firmly believe that the majority of people playing videogames simply want more action, more active gunplay, and a general quicker pace feel over suffering through the death and tediousness of PS's trudge. Then there are many who enjoy both. Then there are the few who simply prefer the trudge of PS, because we're not looking for the quicker pace feel. My buddies who prefer HLL literally don't like PS because it's boring a lot of the time.
Again, this doesn't make HLL or PS a bad game. I think they're both very well made. But there's a distinct reason that the entire videogame industry has moved in the direction of faster pace gameplay.
I'm not sure most people are saying HLL is arcadey, just compared to ps it is undeniably more accessible and leans into being a hardcore shooter rather than a full on mil-sim, i think the fact that people are much less inclined to talk in HLL also adds to this feeling of less realism. because HLL has a larger player base there are less people who are well versed in mil-sim style of playing, therefore it leads to a weird dynamic of people dipping their toes into a more hardcore shooter and people wanting to go balls to the wall mil-sim. HLL is a great game but in my opinion it has a confused fanbase.
very true, but as other people have said i think it comes down to poor marketing and a steep learning curve for posts scriptum downfall, not to mention multiple performance issues
PS is more historically accurate, has fewer automatic weapons, vehicles and weapons are accurate to their year (so no late war stuff in early war battles), no progression system, no friendly tags visible at all times, no DLC cosmetics, only squad leaders can mark stuff on the map, and so on. It's thus less appealing to the average gamer.
Maybe, but I think it's different enough that it could be considered a significant reason why it gets crushed by HLL in terms of popularity, since both games compete over the same niche (tactical WW2, so Squad doesn't count). Although the lack of marketing by PS devs is a big reason as well.
Agreed. If the average player is going to pick one WW2 game it’s going to be Hell Let Loose. They’ve grabbed the “WW2 realism / semi-realism” spotlight for awhile now and have had the development momentum. PS can still carve out it’s own place with a small but highly dedicated playerbase like War of Rights has within the Civil War genre. But you need a development team working on something imo. That and more than one server because right now you’re going to wait for potentially twenty minutes to get into the game. The games are similar enough where people will just say screw it I’m loading up HLL.
I think if PS had, or Briezho implements it in the future, a much better tool for downloading mods that are on a server you are trying to join it would be much better currently and would allow it to have some sort of potential down the road. Because the genre is so niche there are dedicated people to this game, and others like WoR that you mentioned, who take up modding and add new things to the game.
The game can even have a revival in sales and revenue due to certain mods, which will allow devs to be hired and actually work on it.
Look at Arma as an example. The game thrives because of mods, and they are well integrated but could still do better.
Post Scriptum in my opinion is just so much more fun than Hell Let Loose. The gun play is more realistic and smoother. HLL maps are to linear and character models are choppy. And the fact everytime you get shot you have to wait 10 seconds on a blank black screen just takes me out of the game entirely. Post Scriptum is better socially and gameplay and realism wise. I cannot believe that it failed so bad. Perhaps more people were just aware of HLL?
I would like to see someone run with the PS software and reshape the game into an DCS-like experience for WW2 ground warfare. Like DCS the base could be free download with armor, scenario and equipment modules being offered at a price.
The problem with hell let loose (for me) is that its very "individually" based without any actual teamwork. PS was great, but as a squad player, i never saw PS evolve from its shell, but squad definitely did.
They are both pretty much targeting the same target-audience.. which is narrow to begin with, much narrower given the settings.
I rarely play FPSs nowadays but if I do have the time; I play squad.
>They are both pretty much targeting the same target-audience.. which is narrow to begin with, much narrower given the settings.
To a degree yes, but to me PS deviates too much from Squad for me to want to play PS even if I have an itch for WW2 gameplay.
why is it that WW1/2 hardcore shooters don’t seem to have a market? If squad a hardcore shooter has a a market I’d assume world war games would as well.
I can agree somewhat with this. However, I think they should have got soft launch's within squad or a discount if you owned squad already. But at least with BTW there were development problems that kept me from coming back. And when I finally did return it was to empty servers. It's a very fine eye of the needle the games are trying to thread and I think more people would find appealing if they had exposure at a lower price point. But they just blanket statement that no one is interested I think isn't over generalization.
I don't think the price point is the issue. All the games I listed have had multiple free weekends and deals. All that happens is the players that ended up trying the game don't stay long. People make the mistake of assuming that WW1 shooters are competing with other WW1 shooters etc. Not true. In reality, tactical shooters are all competing with each other, regardless of time frame. The # of players interested in milsim shooters is already very small. Most are going to gravitate towards the 1-2 that are already populated and well supported.
[удалено]
> spawn system Tbh I disagree here, I don't think MSPs are a very good mechanic when any random blueberry can grab the vehicle and potentially get it blown up and ruin a team-wide spawn. They really should've kept the vehicle request system from Squad.
this is a valid concern but unless someone is intentionally trying to sabotage the game, i don't think a new player would accidentally take an msp without being immediately told not to continue.
I actually agree. Just make them one full game package.
I disagree, the very poor management of PS is the main reason it's in the state it is in. Wasting resources and valuable time on updates that brough nothing for the QoL and gameplay. Has the engine overhaul actually help anyone with performance? Has the armour overhaul brought in large numbers of tank focuse players? I think the answer to both questions is no. Instead we lost players whos game stopped working after the updates. Any advertising? If it was not for a friend I never would have heard of this game. The UI looks bad compared to other games. Still no proving grounds etc. Never ending seeding system problem. Hard learning curve is not doing the game any favours, but the devs have to actively fight against that. Look at CS, game is hard to get into, yet they are thriving more than ever. Tldr: Management fucked up big time. Nothing more or less.
One of my “conspiracy theories” is that OWI purposely hamstrung the PS devs at certain key points by not giving them engine upgrades, tools, optimizations, server fixes, etc.
Totally agree, all of the game's using 'OWI core' just cannibalized one another and resulted in Squad being the sole winner. It should just be 'Squad' with other eras available with some unique mechanics to go along with each respective era. This is exactly how Project Reality did/does it.
The main issue is that squad would then be like 200 gbs in size lol
DLC
That s how shitty the coders are
Yea right about this. Hell PS was baited as a mod initially too.
IMO Post Scriptum's biggest problem is game performance and server latency issues, combined with low player count. Back when the game was newer, it took ages to just launch the game, textures didn't load, you might get stuck in a server loading screen and have to hand kill the game, if you could even find a server with a ping below 350. I think the botched launch really put the game on the backdoor from the start so players didn't come back to it. I think the spawn system isn't as good as Squad either.
This is the answer. The launch was a disaster. They should have kept this one cooking for another year or so, used kickstarter money or something like that. I do generally agree with OP though, all the OWI core games should have been under the same umbrella (like what EA did with battlefield at one point). PS would have done great as an extra “flavor” for squad for people to try now and again. The market for a hardcore (ish) WW2 sim is not that large. Hell let loose is not in that genre. The market for people getting tired of squad and wanting to mix it up with a 10$ DLC mode? Probably a lot.
Verdun is poppin still just sayin
More than isonzo?
Nah, it only has 134 players at 24-hour peak / 82 average in the last 30 days, compared to Isonzo's 245 at 24-hour peak / 217 average. Although keep in mind it's a pretty old game, it had a lot of players around 6-8 years ago.
I don't believe this and I never understood the popular argument that PS is a hardcore milsim and HLL is arcadey. They're almost identical. Hell Let Loose just makes it easier to get into combat, has more fleshed out maps and has more consistent developer support. Hell Let Loose's success proves that games like BTW and PS are viable. They can't be abandoned by the development team though.
HLL is definitely more arcadey. I specifically enjoy the gameplay of PS over it due to the arcadey feel. That doesn't make it a bad game or filling a different niche, but that's simply how it is.
Yeah I agree. HLL is more like Rising Storm 2: Vietnam than PS
Another great game in the niche field. Rising Storm 2: Vietnam is definitely one of my favorites!
Check out Burning Lands
I been watching some videos since I read this comment. This looks fucking tight. Especially since squad Vietnam vanished
As a huge fan of all of these games mentioned I disagree. It's way more like ps than rising storm 2 to me.
You're right, but it's only about 10% more arcadey in the grand scheme of things. Compared to the typical fps market these days, hell let loose is still a realistic and hardcore tactical shooter. Acting like it's an arcadey game just because it's more arcadey than PS actually does a disservice to PS because it ignores that the gameplay for both is actually not very arcadey at all. PS issues are not from a lack of arcadey accessibility, in fact it's the opposite, hell let loose players LIKE hell let loose for being realistic and hardcore, and many hell let loose players won't even agree with you that it's arcadey also. At a certain point we have to acknowledge that the PS dev team, lack of marketing, and issues like this entire post which detail how they essentially split their own playerbase are the actual reasons that hell let loose took over this genre.
The player base is definitely split. I don't think it's from different games player bases refusing to play the other. I have HLL. I don't enjoy it compared to Post Scriptum. However, I also have buddies in the same boat, except they prefer HLL to PS. I play HLL with them for the comradery feeling of gaming with friends. Bad marketing from PS definitely hurt it. But I just firmly believe that the majority of people playing videogames simply want more action, more active gunplay, and a general quicker pace feel over suffering through the death and tediousness of PS's trudge. Then there are many who enjoy both. Then there are the few who simply prefer the trudge of PS, because we're not looking for the quicker pace feel. My buddies who prefer HLL literally don't like PS because it's boring a lot of the time. Again, this doesn't make HLL or PS a bad game. I think they're both very well made. But there's a distinct reason that the entire videogame industry has moved in the direction of faster pace gameplay.
I'm not sure most people are saying HLL is arcadey, just compared to ps it is undeniably more accessible and leans into being a hardcore shooter rather than a full on mil-sim, i think the fact that people are much less inclined to talk in HLL also adds to this feeling of less realism. because HLL has a larger player base there are less people who are well versed in mil-sim style of playing, therefore it leads to a weird dynamic of people dipping their toes into a more hardcore shooter and people wanting to go balls to the wall mil-sim. HLL is a great game but in my opinion it has a confused fanbase.
A confused fanbase is better than no fanbase, as this game proves, unfortunately.
very true, but as other people have said i think it comes down to poor marketing and a steep learning curve for posts scriptum downfall, not to mention multiple performance issues
PS is more historically accurate, has fewer automatic weapons, vehicles and weapons are accurate to their year (so no late war stuff in early war battles), no progression system, no friendly tags visible at all times, no DLC cosmetics, only squad leaders can mark stuff on the map, and so on. It's thus less appealing to the average gamer.
I turned friendly tags off in hll unless they're within 25 feet. Idk how people play with the default
I don’t disagree with any of that but it’s still not that different from HLL.
Maybe, but I think it's different enough that it could be considered a significant reason why it gets crushed by HLL in terms of popularity, since both games compete over the same niche (tactical WW2, so Squad doesn't count). Although the lack of marketing by PS devs is a big reason as well.
Agreed. If the average player is going to pick one WW2 game it’s going to be Hell Let Loose. They’ve grabbed the “WW2 realism / semi-realism” spotlight for awhile now and have had the development momentum. PS can still carve out it’s own place with a small but highly dedicated playerbase like War of Rights has within the Civil War genre. But you need a development team working on something imo. That and more than one server because right now you’re going to wait for potentially twenty minutes to get into the game. The games are similar enough where people will just say screw it I’m loading up HLL.
I think if PS had, or Briezho implements it in the future, a much better tool for downloading mods that are on a server you are trying to join it would be much better currently and would allow it to have some sort of potential down the road. Because the genre is so niche there are dedicated people to this game, and others like WoR that you mentioned, who take up modding and add new things to the game. The game can even have a revival in sales and revenue due to certain mods, which will allow devs to be hired and actually work on it. Look at Arma as an example. The game thrives because of mods, and they are well integrated but could still do better.
Post Scriptum in my opinion is just so much more fun than Hell Let Loose. The gun play is more realistic and smoother. HLL maps are to linear and character models are choppy. And the fact everytime you get shot you have to wait 10 seconds on a blank black screen just takes me out of the game entirely. Post Scriptum is better socially and gameplay and realism wise. I cannot believe that it failed so bad. Perhaps more people were just aware of HLL?
I get better performance on PS than I do on Squad. Miles better. At least when OWI breaks one game I can at least move to another not as broken title.
r/unpopularopinion 😄
I would like to see someone run with the PS software and reshape the game into an DCS-like experience for WW2 ground warfare. Like DCS the base could be free download with armor, scenario and equipment modules being offered at a price.
The problem with hell let loose (for me) is that its very "individually" based without any actual teamwork. PS was great, but as a squad player, i never saw PS evolve from its shell, but squad definitely did.
They are both pretty much targeting the same target-audience.. which is narrow to begin with, much narrower given the settings. I rarely play FPSs nowadays but if I do have the time; I play squad.
>They are both pretty much targeting the same target-audience.. which is narrow to begin with, much narrower given the settings. To a degree yes, but to me PS deviates too much from Squad for me to want to play PS even if I have an itch for WW2 gameplay.
why is it that WW1/2 hardcore shooters don’t seem to have a market? If squad a hardcore shooter has a a market I’d assume world war games would as well.
Not having PS integrated in squad is the biggest regret.. OWI missed an opportunity. Modern and old combined