What happened to the server?

[Pollux]

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I do think you bring up some really good points, I don't think my view is entirely misguided though because I'm basing it on data we have from the survey. I know that it isn't obviously going to be 100% accurate, but I really don't see any better way to trying to understand what the majority of the community wants than the two surveys we've done in the past year and a bit. The survey showed that people find the gamemode fun (was around a 7 if I remember correctly), it's just the quality of RP was rated at a 1-2. That was the biggest issue identified in the survey, and one that is so difficult to really fix. The event team has been doing a great job at trying to kickstart RP and help out in that regard, it just unfortunately hasn't worked. A lot of complaints in the survey were that people no longer RP and just want to grind money, this is a general shift we've seen in gmod over the past few years and our updates have been in response to it - not the cause of it.

I'm not going to pretend we've made no mistakes over the past few years as that'd be stupid, but everything we've done to the gamemode has always been because the community says they want it. Dynamic economy was only added after a stupid majority (like 98%? All I remember is there were around 4 votes against) said they want a player-influenced economy. I would say there's a big divide between newer players and older, with older ones understandably wanting FL to remain true to what it was years ago and newer players wanting us to catch up to all the servers that exist today. That means no matter what we do, it's going to cause conflict within the community - something which ultimately destroys motivation for many. It doesn't help that we failed at controlling toxicity, with the forums really being an unwelcoming mess sometimes. It's impossible to please everyone in the end, and with a community as old as FL you usually have so many different viewpoints due to how many people have played. A good example is V2D, if you looked at the forums you'd think everyone wants it back. The reason we went V4B1 is because the survey showed us that V2D would annoy half the playerbase while V4B1 annoyed about 4 people. It was a no-brainer to pick V4B1 as almost everyone said they loved it, I doubt anyone would've not chosen V4B1 when presented with that data.

I do have to disagree with FLs success being dependent on the gamemode, as all it really offers is player freedom to do whatever. You mention things like the HUD, and sure while I understand people dislike it, it wouldn't be reasonable to say FL died because of a cosmetic change. We also only did it because we realised we need to start modernizing FL or risk it dying, as people mentioned it in the survey. We've done several similar cosmetic changes in the past and what we always see is an initial resistance before people warm up to it - likely as FL is somewhat known for being resistant to change. When I refreshed the F1 menu for example, there was initial pushback before people started to like it a bit after trying it, even though it was just the old design but a bit nicer looking. Now I don't think anyone would say it's worse than the old one after trying both. Another thing you bought up with the guns, I can't really comment as I wasn't on the team when we swapped to CW 2.0 (that was done by Tomo and Fultz if I remember correctly, or at least they helped). I don't think it was a bad decision though, especially as I believe it was due to a heavily supported suggestion. Definitely worth a try at the very least.

I don't want to rant for ages again so I'm just going to sum up what I'm trying to say here. I can definitely look to the past and identify mistakes we've made, but I also can't look at any as an obvious reason as to why we're in this situation today because I don't think it really has to do with the gamemode itself. It's also ultimately impossible for us to even see what was good or what went wrong, as the community tends to be very divided on almost anything we do. FL used to have a decent gamemode compared to others servers, but that stopped being true many years ago. We get stomped now by the innovation seen in some other servers and have had to rely on players and being such an old community to survive. Ultimately I would say half of the community would want us to remain true to what FL once was and the other half wants us to catch up and be more modern like all the other servers. In that situation, we simply don't win and piss off half the community no matter what we do - which is exactly what we've seen over the past few years. Obviously the old FL didn't work and that's why we had to update it to deal with what players now want, but that also doesn't mean the new FL is "better" - it just means it's alive for a bit longer. We chose to try modernise because that's our best chance at attracting new players, which is what we needed to try be a more sustainable as It's really hard for us to give someone with 4000 hours something to do. At this point it may be far too late to try save what once was, especially if it's all based on what is ultimately a "YOLO it can't get worse" attempt rather than doing what genuinely may help. I also really do think a lot of people are being somewhat blinded by nostalgia, which makes it so much harder to try push forward.

EDIT: I just want to add, the reason so many in the team have said no to stuff mentioned is because those in the team realise we don't have the ability to implement a lot of the things you guys suggestion or that they directly conflict with the survey. We only have a finite amount of manpower that we can dedicate to things, and with each failed attempt that ability becomes less and less. That means we have to prioritise things which seem "safer" or more likely to be enjoyed by everyone rather than cause yet more divide.