... needs a serious readjustment.
i'm a player on america 1, known to most as vixen. i've been playing dinostorm since march 2013. i'm level 25, nearly everything maxed. i love this game quite a bit, and my "noob" years were quite a bit of fun. just one problem has come to my attention in late months.
and this game has lots of issues.
for one, the lag is horrendous. when i say horrendous, i mean it. i lag out an incredible amount of the time, and if there's just *one* too many people on the map at one time, i can barely play. not once since i've started playing has the lag been addressed. they've added more servers, sure, but i hvaen't seen a difference with spacing out players. the lag, in short, is one of this game's biggest shortcomings.
not as big, however, as the lack of balance. with the pvp, there are basically two set-ups people use. this makes it extremely difficult to get any sort of advantage and difficult to handle large groups of people if you don't have *just* the right combination. the addition of clothing attributes helped a little, but the balance issue is still there. i've had countless players destroy me, even with my better techs/implants/etc... because of boosters. violent boosters are severely overpowered and there's nothing that i've found that counters them decently enough. the worst part is that you can only get boosters in significant amounts if you spend the gold coins for them. meaning, you lose unless you pay real money. i can't even fight without basic boosters anymore, because the animals dropping them means that's essentially the base power you have. *everyone* on this game has basic boosters. they hardly do anything anymore. the removal of the pots and addition of the heal ability is nice, but removing the pots removed some of the counters you could use. i remember deflect pots in particular being good against strength. that being said, there are some implants and techs that don't have any counters now that pots are gone. (strength being a big one, unless you're a centro user).
balance isn't limited just to the pvp though. elections are also entirely unbalanced. i've visited the majority of the america servers, and in every one there is a clan that completely and utterly controls the elections. what does this mean? smaller clans don't make fame and don't win elections. for example, america 1 is controlled by clan steel romero "mex". it's an absolutely huge clan, and the majority are spanish as the name suggests. they own two maps, and because of their size and power, are rarely ever attacked. because of that, they dominate elections completely. they don't let anyone through without their approval, namely english players. (another thing i'll get to, by the way). i'm not entirely sure what clans rule the other servers, but i know they're there.
a huge thing, in america 1 at least, is racism. odd as this sounds, it seems to primarily be racism towards the english. not that the spanish or portuguese escape it however, but it is not to the degree the english receive it. i mentioned clan steel romero "mex" above, and they are a large part of this problem. they are spanish players, and they send other spanish players to attack the english clans and prevent them from gaining fame, to continue holding their monopoly. i've had spanish players say nasty things to me in spanish, so that i don't understand unless i translate, and it's difficult to keep up when 25 people are spamming the local chat. i've even seen a screenshot of a spanish saying "exterminate all english." that's right, they're trying to exterminate us by blocking elections, sending other clans after us, and being a general pain in the rear end. i digress however, because this isn't just about america 1. the other servers i've visited also seem to have big clans dominated by a single race. it doesn't seem racist at first glance, but when you really get down to the core of it... yeah. it's racism.
while i'm on the subject of racism and spamming clan chat.... WHERE ARE THE GAME MASTERS? i've not seen one in my server for months.. that's not an exaggeration, i promise you. the last time i saw a GM was one of the lead GMs, who showed up in the server when someone was cursing at me, and did not do anything. since then, america 1 has been completely void of any sort of moderation. as i said before, there is a lot of racism, spamming, sexism, etc that needs addressing. it should NOT be on the players to have to report everything. dinostorm is a game, and a family game at that. sad to say, however, this is not a friendly environment. i've heard homophobic slurs, racist slurs, references to unspeakable things, and general unpleasantness. if you've been on america 1, you'll understand how difficult it is to report all of this in one sitting. really, it just can't be done. nobody on america 1 fears getting in trouble anymore...
... and one reason is the support system. one thing that really bothers me is the message i receive when i've sent a report. it would be reassuring to know the person has been dealt with. more often than not, they're not dealt with. i've sent in reports for some pretty bad things, had support answer the ticket, and then nothing been done. there are many people who should have been banned who are still around. there are still other players who have been banned multiple times and keep coming back. as i said before, it creates a toxic environment and makes the game experience really quite awful. support also takes an extremely long amount of time to reply, so long in fact that half the time it's just not worth it. honestly, i don't really report anyone much anymore, simply because nothing is done about it.
in short, this game is a good concept. i hesitate to call it a game, because really.. it's not. it's not nearly complete enough and there are so many issues. one player even remarked that dinostorm would never be out of beta. it's a shame really. dinostorm is an extremely unique idea. if things were fixed and tended to, then perhaps it will be as good as it once was.
i'm a player on america 1, known to most as vixen. i've been playing dinostorm since march 2013. i'm level 25, nearly everything maxed. i love this game quite a bit, and my "noob" years were quite a bit of fun. just one problem has come to my attention in late months.
and this game has lots of issues.
for one, the lag is horrendous. when i say horrendous, i mean it. i lag out an incredible amount of the time, and if there's just *one* too many people on the map at one time, i can barely play. not once since i've started playing has the lag been addressed. they've added more servers, sure, but i hvaen't seen a difference with spacing out players. the lag, in short, is one of this game's biggest shortcomings.
not as big, however, as the lack of balance. with the pvp, there are basically two set-ups people use. this makes it extremely difficult to get any sort of advantage and difficult to handle large groups of people if you don't have *just* the right combination. the addition of clothing attributes helped a little, but the balance issue is still there. i've had countless players destroy me, even with my better techs/implants/etc... because of boosters. violent boosters are severely overpowered and there's nothing that i've found that counters them decently enough. the worst part is that you can only get boosters in significant amounts if you spend the gold coins for them. meaning, you lose unless you pay real money. i can't even fight without basic boosters anymore, because the animals dropping them means that's essentially the base power you have. *everyone* on this game has basic boosters. they hardly do anything anymore. the removal of the pots and addition of the heal ability is nice, but removing the pots removed some of the counters you could use. i remember deflect pots in particular being good against strength. that being said, there are some implants and techs that don't have any counters now that pots are gone. (strength being a big one, unless you're a centro user).
balance isn't limited just to the pvp though. elections are also entirely unbalanced. i've visited the majority of the america servers, and in every one there is a clan that completely and utterly controls the elections. what does this mean? smaller clans don't make fame and don't win elections. for example, america 1 is controlled by clan steel romero "mex". it's an absolutely huge clan, and the majority are spanish as the name suggests. they own two maps, and because of their size and power, are rarely ever attacked. because of that, they dominate elections completely. they don't let anyone through without their approval, namely english players. (another thing i'll get to, by the way). i'm not entirely sure what clans rule the other servers, but i know they're there.
a huge thing, in america 1 at least, is racism. odd as this sounds, it seems to primarily be racism towards the english. not that the spanish or portuguese escape it however, but it is not to the degree the english receive it. i mentioned clan steel romero "mex" above, and they are a large part of this problem. they are spanish players, and they send other spanish players to attack the english clans and prevent them from gaining fame, to continue holding their monopoly. i've had spanish players say nasty things to me in spanish, so that i don't understand unless i translate, and it's difficult to keep up when 25 people are spamming the local chat. i've even seen a screenshot of a spanish saying "exterminate all english." that's right, they're trying to exterminate us by blocking elections, sending other clans after us, and being a general pain in the rear end. i digress however, because this isn't just about america 1. the other servers i've visited also seem to have big clans dominated by a single race. it doesn't seem racist at first glance, but when you really get down to the core of it... yeah. it's racism.
while i'm on the subject of racism and spamming clan chat.... WHERE ARE THE GAME MASTERS? i've not seen one in my server for months.. that's not an exaggeration, i promise you. the last time i saw a GM was one of the lead GMs, who showed up in the server when someone was cursing at me, and did not do anything. since then, america 1 has been completely void of any sort of moderation. as i said before, there is a lot of racism, spamming, sexism, etc that needs addressing. it should NOT be on the players to have to report everything. dinostorm is a game, and a family game at that. sad to say, however, this is not a friendly environment. i've heard homophobic slurs, racist slurs, references to unspeakable things, and general unpleasantness. if you've been on america 1, you'll understand how difficult it is to report all of this in one sitting. really, it just can't be done. nobody on america 1 fears getting in trouble anymore...
... and one reason is the support system. one thing that really bothers me is the message i receive when i've sent a report. it would be reassuring to know the person has been dealt with. more often than not, they're not dealt with. i've sent in reports for some pretty bad things, had support answer the ticket, and then nothing been done. there are many people who should have been banned who are still around. there are still other players who have been banned multiple times and keep coming back. as i said before, it creates a toxic environment and makes the game experience really quite awful. support also takes an extremely long amount of time to reply, so long in fact that half the time it's just not worth it. honestly, i don't really report anyone much anymore, simply because nothing is done about it.
in short, this game is a good concept. i hesitate to call it a game, because really.. it's not. it's not nearly complete enough and there are so many issues. one player even remarked that dinostorm would never be out of beta. it's a shame really. dinostorm is an extremely unique idea. if things were fixed and tended to, then perhaps it will be as good as it once was.