APPEAL TO PB2AFTER SEVERAL MONTHS' RESEARCH FROM DIFFERENT PLACES, WE CONCLUDED A REPORT REFLECTING THE SITUATION OF THE GAME AS WELL AS THE OPINIONS OF MANY PLAYERS. AUTHOR:KING4K 、YI EN 、LINFor the PDF version, see:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ltv7EoLnQogKAFjHbrZq0sLErWobIVif/view?usp=sharing·INTRODUCTIONWe were extremely excited about the advent of the big update in Oct 10, 2019. Ranging from the extension of the trigger types, the custom decoration to the new multiplayer server, we firmly believed that these tremendous and innovative works were bound to bring pb2 a new life, especially in terms of multiplayer games, the player amount of which would have been soar, but the fact is that there exists a big loss of players soon after the update.
·WHY PB2 CAN DISTINGUISH FROM OTHER GAMESAs you can see, since 2011 until the year before the data leak incident, or even after a few years (maybe 2018), plazma burst 2 is aimed to be towards competitive, PvP styled matches, some skillful fttb/ctp/etc map that requires some mind twisting to win the game. And a lot of technique usage as known as tactics, pre-aim, timing training and some other useful strategies strive the players to practice their skill over and over again in order to beat more players. It is those unique features that differentiates PB2 from other FPS flash games--which are easily to be bored (For instance, Raze series, Strike Force Heroes series) and it is also those that lead to the average player age relatively high.
·3 SET OF STATISTICSStatistic 1: It can be seen from the report that during the last 3 months, about 40% of the new players comes from games.softpedia.com, whose total visits is just the half of PB2, and coolbuddy.com only contributes 1.65% of new players.
By these statistics we can deduce that the present income of the players is too low. Before effective methods taken place to appeal more players, it is wise to maintain the current players.
Statistic 2: After the new server comes out, the players in the server stepped down, we recorded the players in the server from 12 Feb to 18 Feb and the average player number was 59 compared to over 120 in and before 10 Oct.
From that statistics we can see that although the number of players increased not soon the new server came out, it cooled down 4 months later, which reflects a considerable loss.
Statistic 3:These people were legend players but they haven't got any rank game records for 3 months. Moreover, most of whom doesn’t have any custom maps, meaning they only intrigued in server games.
·CONCLUSION OF THE THREE STATISTICSFrom the 3 statistics it can be concluded that the income of the number of players is substantially
low in the past 3 months, and the new server directly led to a large number of core players unwilling to
play the game, and subsequently contributed to the loss of server
·NEW MULTIPLIER SERVER LIMITS THE TACTICS OF PLAYERSLet’s take some instance. The new netcode is based on the hit detection on every client screen. You would ask that what would be the problem on it? Actually, it does a lot.
First and foremost, we had to introduce a new term which is called “ping difference” before we are going ahead onto the topic. We have a scenario which is you meeting a lower ping player (imagine you had like 300 ping meanwhile the other player has 200 ping).
When the low latency player self-boost itself, meanwhile at the higher latency ping player screen, he doesn’t seem to self-boost and all in sudden, the low latency ping player teleported onto midair and you are dead.
In this scenario we can easily find out that the lower latency ping players have the advantage on killing higher latency ping players. As the standard on killing player greatly decreases on low ping users, but the lack of server durability and the performance will force those legends left the game.
·NEW MULTIPLIER SERVER DRAGS DOWN THE STANDARD OF THE MAPS AND RESULT TO THE MONOTONOUS SERVER ROOMSIt should be noted that the new gameplay does not merely disappoints core members, but for all of the players. Due to the ‘’ping difference’’, any fast-paced movements, such as chasing, shooting in a rifle will also cause the chaos, for that reason, players can’t predict the bullet as well as the position of the enemies. for that reason, a host of maps disappeared, leaving the games which don’t need skills and chase.
As the new gameplay is established, most of the old and classic maps that every old player must familiar on are unusable, for instance, zombie maps, 7 vs 1 maps. Majority of the maps are used or designed cleverly for old gameplay matches. But these classic and memorable maps are instantly thrown into trash as new gameplay changes how those maps should be served.
The following statistic reveals this point.
We can see that maps which don’t need tactics occupy more than 75% of the total maps in the new server. This fact strengthens the hypothetic that the server will be dominated by those maps, which not attribute the competitiveness of the game, thus makes players bored.
·RESURRECTIONTo be honest, resurrection is considered a good term in Oxford or Cambridge dictionary, but sadly in plazma burst 2, it is the most annoying feature for high latency ping players. In old gameplay, predicting or calculating when the higher or lower latency player passed through the point and shoot to get a kill is far more better than the new gameplay, had to make sure if he is really dead or even no chance to get it. The death all in sudden and see the corpse pop up and stay alive will dishearten a lot of players and annoys them all.
You said if the ping is about 200, this phenomenon will not happen, but under the current circumstance, it can’t apply to most of players. As the statistic follows:
More than 80% of the players are not American, which will absolutely result to the huge gap between everyone, and consequently leads to the ‘ping different’ and resurrection. In that case, this problem, to some extent, can’t be resolved in the new server.
·THE CHRONIC POISONRecent days, we held a poll in Discord, the result of which as follows:
Most players are complaining about ping limit, which could reflect two facts. First, it enhances the point that the ping gap is severe, or at least, higher than 200 ping, and consequently makes it unfeasible to make everyone eliminates the resurrection. Second, we noticed the ping was raised to 350 soon after the poll, so we did the research a few days later but found that there was not a prominent raise in the approved map, as the statistic below:
Consequently, the ping limit can’t be the main factor of the decline of the players.
Also, the 2nd, 3th, 4th opinions in the poll reflect the issues we raise in this report also represent a host of players.
·THE UNFAIR MECHANISM IN CURRENT GAME SITUATION Actually, both two netcodes, when the pings are low, are fair. Because the game could be played in one standard.
However, the new netcodes, under the circumstance where pings are high and wide difference, is unfair. For the low-ping players, they can’t use tactics to hide or shoot. For the high-ping ones, other players will ‘flash’ in their screens, and the ‘resurrection’ makes them irritated.
It is the ping that divided the game into two standards, and consequently exaggerates the unfairness of the new server, compared to the old one, which has only one standard in the server instead of the local.
·THE SEEMINGLY THRIVE OF THE GAME IN THE SHORT PERIOD It can not be denied that the new server, in the short period, did have its advantage that players can get the real-time feedback in the game as they shoot enemies. Nevertheless, due to the game mechanics, we anticipate a majority tactic maps, approved maps would be largely eliminated, leaving other maps which make players bored. Sadly, according the statistics we found and the complaints concerning the core players, all the hypothesis outcome true, or even more severe as time goes.
There’s an opinion that the reason people against the new server is that they addicted to the old one, and not willing to adapt. That is absolutely irresponsible. It was a host of core members, who played the new server for a long period of time, who clearly know that was wrong with the server, who are continually support the game from 2013 to 2020. So, we are deeply concerned about it and hope something could be done to get the game out of trouble.
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*STATISTICS MENTIONED: Statistics of New Multiplayer Server.xslxhttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ii7_dFR1X7agp2HlI8aC9FSd0L9EAs_Z/view?usp=sharingMarketing Channel.pdfhttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1sTmlt43intlOrULGJYC11JFVj14wc8Tc/view?usp=sharingIncoming Traffic.pdfhttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1LEEMplhEeR7HFalB7U1XTzGrFxaH4wM1/view?usp=sharing