Am I Stupid? - Low Like/Dislike Ratio

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Hello, I have been running ads on my game for a few days now. It is sitting at 2.2k visits, and 135 favorites (a favorite rate of over 6%), but my ratings are at only 57% (24 to 18 at the time of writing).

I am really struggling to understand why people are disliking the game so hard, I have checked active servers for bugs multiple times and found everything to be going as it should, the game doesn’t try to get any robux out of the player (there isn’t any monetized content at all).

The game is based on others like GTA and Cyberpunk, in the sense that it focuses on the player’s interactions with the world and the NPCs (Civilians and Police). The progression is centered around unlocking powerful guns by getting your level and cash high enough. The gameplay loop is split into two main activities: fighting police for XP and fighting civilians for their Cash. The players that spoke to me about their experience playing say it has potential and that it’s fun, and I’ve seen people play the game for more than 30 minutes in some cases, in general the majority of direct feedback ive been getting has been very positive

So then I don’t understand why the dislike count is so high, this is the only proper negative feedback I’ve got and I found it very perplexing, almost every 3 words there’s something really weird being said
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I will be going through each criticism and debating it. Please tell me if I’m biased, or I’m actually doing something wrong
“No aimed down sights” Why is this needed or important? Why does it automatically make the game bad? Does every action game need aim down sights?
“Graphics kinda suck” This is the weirdest one. I spent about two hours messing with lighting effects and color to get the right look for the game, the buildings have a decent ammount of effort put into them. I don’t understand what was so hideous about the game, especially since this guy doesn’t elaborate any of his criticisms. It looks like a Roblox game, genuinely what more could you want?
“NPCs need to be smarter” Aside from performance complications, I am one guy. One single developer making every single system.
“Lack of game mechanics” MIGHT be reasonable if there weren’t FOUR disclaimers that the game is in early development in the title and the description. If you don’t like the game for what it is and what the core mechanics are, it’s not for you, no need to hurt it in an early stage when it’s trying to find a playerbase.
“Combat is boring” How complex should it be? Why? Again, it’s a Roblox game, I’m a single dev, and it’s in early stages. Games like Prison Life have simple combat but people don’t care, because it doesn’t need the combat to go crazy, it does it’s job. My game has combat somewhat similar to Prison Life just with prettier visuals and animations, and a few mechanics on top. You can’t run while shooting and the selection of guns has decent variety (reasonably good variety considering they’re all real guns from the 80’s). Different Melee weapons have different weight that affects their animations and different damage values, you choose between heavy and high damage or fast and lesser damage. I think that’s a reasonable ammount of complexity for a Roblox game.
“Add more stuff, like atms, banks, or jewel stores” ITS IN EARLY DEVELOPMENT IT SAYS 0.9 BETA IN THE TITLE. That aside how is it more interesting to punch a static ATM box for money than fight NPC’s for it? Why is it more interesting to click E next to a cash register than to hit someone with a shovel and take their pocket money?

So yeah, any other dev reading this please tell me if I’m just coping/overreacting, if there is anything I immediately need to change I will try my best to do it. I’m not trying to sympathy bait, I am genuinely looking for help. Please try the game and give it a like if you think it deserves it, the like ratio is destroying my CTR

4 Likes
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No, but there’s ton of 9 years old who dislike games just to dislike them because there’s a single single thing they didn’t like
Also, most people actually don’t read the entire description so…

another thing you could do is actually trying to add the features these people said that’ll at least help you more in the like/dislike ratio

also why did the title of this post remind me of those “Are they stupid?” meme posts on reddit

3 Likes
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I just played your game, and i actually enjoyed it, it seems fun. But the gameloop isn’t deep enough to keep players engaged for very long. The server I was in died within 10 minutes.

This is not enough unfortunately, both activities are essentially the same action. Once the player has experienced combat and understands this is all they can do. There is not much new for them to discover or work towards, besides more cash.

Also it is not very clear where you can spend your cash, I suggest maybe adding onboarding (like a tutorial showing where you can spend your money)

Your gameplay needs more variety, and it needs to be very clear to the player on what they can do (you can’t assume every player has played GTA and understands your gameloop instantly). Add more ways to get money, like stores or banks you can rob.

You should also eventually add some reasonable monetization, since monetization is a signal roblox measures. You don’t have to shove it down their throat, but it should be an option.

(edit: the main reason people are probably disliking your game is from a lack of a tutorial, if you want to improve your like to dislike ratio i would start here, and it doesn’t have to hold their hand, just give them some sense of direction)

1 Like
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i like this game, even though a lot of stuff is missing i found it very fun, so don’t get discouraged by the dislikes, most of the time they mean nothing

1 Like
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I also like this game, can’t understand the like to dislike ratio, same thing happened with my game but I do kinda understand why that got dislike bombed lol. This game is pretty cool, I’m literally making something similar myself. I would recommend maybe making a mini-map and that way you can mark points of interest or shops on it - cos I couldn’t really find anywhere to spend money except for soda machines. Should keep some players on for longer. I really like the NPC system. Mind if I ask, do your NPCs have Humanoid objects or are they non-humanoid NPCs?

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Thanks, the NPCs exist as character models with Humanoids on the server, and animations and ragdolls that play on the clientside. Also for smooth pathfinding I check the network owner every second and set it to nil if I have to (Roblox can randomly change it even if you set it at spawn)

1 Like
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I def should have mentioned that i have been planning features like bounty, gangs and robberies from the start and the game is just in early stages

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Fair, I did add a tutorial/notice, but apparently it didn’t load for a lot of people (it was supposed to show as soon as the player joins, but since loading isnt that fast for a lot of people it did not), I fixed it to show like 5 seconds after a player joins

1 Like
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Maybe not what you’re looking to hear, but a game that essentially boils down to gunning down random civilians in the street does feel a bit distasteful. I understand you can do this in other games, but that’s (virtually) all you can do in this game. Feels less like a crime simulator and more like something grosser. I get that it’s in alpha, and if this is just a test-drive of your mechanics that’s fine, but you shouldn’t be wondering why people are leaving bad reviews. Players don’t care what release phase the game is in, they just care if it’s fun to play.

I guess the TLDR is: Your core loop is fine, but the rest of the game is missing, that’s why people are leaving bad reviews.

You can ignore my moralizing/ethical stuff if you want it just felt too much like a mass murder sim rather than a crime sim and left me with an icky feeling while playing.