I want to take a moment to say a massive, heartfelt thank you to everyone who jumped in. I'll be real with you, starting out on Friday was bumpy, and I know getting matches going took some serious patience. But despite the hurdles, games were played, data was gathered, and holes were poked in the system. Which is exactly what a first playtest is for!
From a technical perspective, you gave my backend matchmaking and server orchestration a serious workout.
Matchmaking & Queue Times: This was the biggest hurdle. With 160 players total granted access on Steam, spreading everyone across different time zones made finding 6 players for a 3v3 match tough. Lesson learned: for future tests, I'll set specific "community play windows" to pack the servers so everyone can find matches instantly.
Netcode & Rubber-Banding: There were definitely some severe performance dips and rubber-banding for some of you. Experiencing that firsthand while playing together gives me a great starting point to dive into the code and start debugging.
Gunplay & Game Feel: I got some great, constructive notes here. The gunplay and movement definitely needs more love, and your feedback gives me a clear direction on how to dial it in.
Fresh Bugs & Fresh Ideas: You found things I’ve never encountered during solo development, and tossed out some incredible ideas to make the core loop even better.
To everyone who just joined the Discord community: welcome! It is incredibly cool to see the very beginning of this player base forming around my game. Right now, I am organizing all your feedback and structuring a definitive attack plan. Then, it's heads-down back into development to implement these improvements and start rolling out new features.
I'm also cooking up a better strategy to more regular playtests as I roll out new, improved builds. Stay tuned for updates on that. Again, thank you for your time, your patience, and your awesome feedback this weekend. It means the world to me. You are playing a massive role in helping me turn this game into something truly awesome!
/Mike