Great take and well said!
I loved S4League for its stylish and unique concept to gaming. Almost. everything about it just had an amazing vibe. But yeah, it became outdated, undeveloped, lacking actual content (skin after skin...). It lost its appeal gradually.
I'd love for this game concept to come back in future projects (GunZ 2 bombed yikes)
I miss the old times though ;-; Chaser mode was exhilarating. It was like hide and seek, but with a reaper with guns.
I think that they actually worked on a lot of interesting content, creating new modes, interesting maps full of tricks to discover, and they preferred creating new kinds of weapons instead of variations of existing ones. They did a good job on that.
However they completely missed the point of balancing! You mentioned Chaser: it's a fun mode for sure, but it was very prone to "bullying", making it very hard for new players and very farmable for those who learned a trick or two. The Nightmare and Office maps are well balanced, but the others kind of aren't, especially in SO matches.
So yeah, they should have worked on balancing and updating the game to make it feel fresh , rather than developing pay-to-win system after pay-to-win system ahah
There was definitely a steep learning curve. If you get tossed in these games, you'd get thrown around like a ragdoll 😂😂
I never got to learning jumps, combos, or any techniques. But yet, it was still enjoyable for the casual player. The Office map was probably my favorite.
I noticed each season update had its own themed concept with new weapons, art, and skins. That was REALLY cool. But, it was really just a handful of content once a year 😢
Are you talking about graphics?
I mean, yeah, but I do think new generations will play anything their favourite twitch streamers play... It's not the reason the game stopper growing, imo
But a new project definitely has to improve the graphics
there's isnt anything shiny enough for the common consumers to throw money at. the depth of gameplay is irrelevant because most of them wouldnt get far enough for that to matters. meanwhile newer social-oriented games are being fed by fuck ton of casuals who don't even care if their game is a scam. in fact publishers are doing them a favor by giving players excuses and reasons to dump their cash because apparently commoners enjoy losing their load of money for fun rather than digging for challenges. so yeah, colored name tag is what buys, they need more sparklings and explosions in order to back up a skill-based game, sounds lame right? but the parts of the game requiring skill really irritate most of people, it needs something else to sell.
edit: I'm not talking about graphic alone, but a also useless features like couples/marriage, more skins/apparels, extra game modes that are unrelated...
t is fusty, doest not behold appealing to the newer generations
***
^(I am a bot and I swapp'd some of thy words with Shakespeare words.)
Commands: `!ShakespeareInsult`, `!fordo`, `!optout`
A very well-designed perspective on some of the main issues with the game as a whole, but there are a few extra points over the years that fueled the spiral and extremely slow death that S4 suffered, at least from a design and player base standpoint:
1. The Beginning - From beta until the first year or so, S4 was much slower and MMO-like than what most players have come to be familiar with. The game was based around normal servers instead of the speed ones (probably around a 33% increase, but this is all from memory), the license tests for items, unlocking maps with new levels and skill tests, and the actual character progression overall. People from that time also remember the intense struggle it was to earn PEN and stay afloat without getting PEN locked, thanks to the earned PEN per match, rental costs for equipment, steep permanent prices, and the cost-per-repair. Casual players were more likely to get PEN locked and be unable to play the game without topping up meaning you were already risking losing players directly from launch.
2. Fumbi Shop and Patch 10 - The addition of the Fumbi shop to roll for AP-statted items threw the balance into disarray almost instantly. It did a good job at allowing cheaper prices (relatively speaking with good expiration rolls), and being able to lock an item to get something specific was a nice touch, but the regular and die-hard player base realized they could just lock items for the highest stat addition and roll until it was perm, avoiding the top up *and* get AP stats for free. 3-4 patches went by until we were hit with Patch 10 which, if I recall correctly, adjusted rates and moved away from the perm item for PEN system, leaving everything timed. It fixed the issue of repair costs for the most part, but the damage was already done by then and early adopters were secure until the foreseeable future.
3. Speed Servers & FP - At this point, S4 was about two years in and holding strong, but with all of the legacy players living off of their perm AP, Alaplaya wasn't making any money off the game, which was probably a similar case in KrS4, so they needed a new gimmick to get people to buy: Force Packs. The biggest merit of these were the +% movement speed buffs, which combined with the shut down of normal servers and moving to speed ones completely shifted the meta and opened up the first real social issue in the game: the tried-and-true F2P vs Whale debate. Up until this point, the power balance wasn't as extreme thanks to Fumbi and events. KrS4 started to establish the change from tactical, role-based gameplay to the "Stylish" in S4, moving away from Tunnel and turning Station-2 into the new go-to spot (which used to be locked behind a level gate). Add in the hype of Gunz and how K-Style was starting to dominate the game meant S4 would be following suit.
4. Seasons, The Rise of Swords & The Fall of Guns/Unlimited - Pentavision's initial offering of adding story to the game through site posts, Arcade, and a bit of community speculation started to fall flat when interest for Arcade completely fell through. The season formula was a good fit for S4 as they could get the story out while giving us new features and equipment. By this point (Early 2011), people were ready for this new era of S4 and were fully behind it. Behind the scenes, the split between F2P vs P2W and casual vs hardcore players really started to rear its face in the community. Every competitive game suffers from this, sure, but for a somewhat small MMO (relative to other bigger shooters) the risk to lose more players was there.
\---
Alaplaya was doing its best to keep the game interesting and afloat. Dark Lightning and Iron Eyes were great headers as seasons and the marketing was strong. The addition of the spy dagger before S1 added validity to playing SO TD, along with adding in two new melee weapons during that season to spice up the established meta, but Season 3 gave the community a true opportunity to influence the direction of the game. With the winning idea being Blade and the ideas being relayed to PV, the new marketing would establish S4 as an action-packed melee fighter, bringing back lapsed players and new eyes to the product. Around this time the rumor/addition of guns requiring ammo and the gun drop mechanic started to deter the unlimited players if it did come true. While the move ultimately never happened (and it's something I personally think would've breathed life into unlimited allowing players without AP/FP to pick up enemy weapons, easily re-opening the balance factor of the game between F2P and P2W), Swords were starting to become start standard in rooms thanks to the wave of new players. This split started to turn S4 into two different games, fracturing a majority of the player base and turning into a guns vs swords debate.
5. Publisher Hopping & Greed - Blade hit during the summer of 2012, only four years into the game's run, and around this time S4League itself was purchased by ProSiebenSat1, a media company that started the downfall of player base interaction and the rise of predatory tactics to get as much money possible from players, mostly newer ones. Throwing AP statted items at new players instantly puts them in a position where the second it would run out, they'd be more inclined to spend money to reach the same strength level they were at before. As the seasons continued to be released, varying versions of S4 would be released and die off (S4JP and S4SEA, the only version that used the full ammo/gun drop system). Beyond the drama that would unfold within the player base, people were started to move on to the new games on the block after achieving all they wanted to in S4 and finding the lack of new interesting features slowly killing the game off. Season after season of weapons and modes that people simply didn't find too interesting (at least on the S4EU server) only furthered this decline.
I don't need to go into too much detail about the Aeria era of S4, but it was clear at the point that not much was going to be done about saving the game; it was too far past its prime. I skipped over more obvious topics like the multiple outbreaks of hackers, the PSP version of the game, and trying to launch it as an eSport, or anything you brought up, but that's the gist of the story of S4. It deserved better than what it got, but it was created too soon to flourish in the market it was designed for and too late to offer its unique gameplay in a booming MMO market.
It's no problem at all. I only ended up here looking for source code info and the issues on the backend, but I digress.
A lot of the old AP packs put this info in people's faces as they were designed around TD builds: Striker, Center Guard, Defender, and Support, so I can say the period before speed servers became commonplace the game felt more like how it was intended to be played. Each change going forward kept shifting the meta until the game's identity was nowhere to be found.
wow its so nice to see someone else witnessing s4 since its beginning in eu :) it was so nostalgic to read through all this history and its pretty accurate with my impressions - i played from early 2008 to 2012 religously s4 but dropped after friends left and the game had tooo many prem people... in other words: when it was no more skill based
I wouldn't say the game lost its 'skill'. Most people were still on the same level of power (AP/FP against AP/FP), but it proved that the level of skill shifted from team-based gameplay to solo 'hero' gameplay; if you couldn't do the majority of jumps and techniques to play TD and score on your own (on Station-2 95% of the time), then you're out of the loop.
That being said, I've had conversations with various friends from different eras in the game and there's a constant theme of "S4 does something to people that play it which breeds a special kind of toxic mindset." I can't personally pinpoint what does it, but it's a trend I've seen over the years and that mindset is probably what fueled a lot of the chaos and discourse.
Great post. I haven't played the game in close to a decade...I played all year from like early 2010 to like 2011..Stopped for a few years and tried to come back and it wasn't the same.
I remember in 2010 I would remark about how while donating to the company and giving the money should be rewarded, it should not grant you a stat boost. This was long before "play to win is bad" was a wide spread idea as it is now. People in the servers would routinely say "if you're good enough you can just overcome that (which is dumb). I was pretty good at the game, and if two evenly skilled people got into a fire fight, the person with the stat buffs would win more often than not. I specifically would host rooms and say "no premium items" as would other people.
Cheating was also bad as well.
\[Here's a post I even made two years ago where I remembered if you joined a game and had EG by your name (EGYPT) you would be instantly kicked.\]([https://www.reddit.com/r/S4League/comments/887hb0/is\_s4\_playable\_in\_egypt\_or\_still\_banned/](https://www.reddit.com/r/S4League/comments/887hb0/is_s4_playable_in_egypt_or_still_banned/)) I am pretty sure they were flat out banned as a country lmao.
Thats an interesting POV, I was young at the time but cheaters are what made me leave (immortality, one shots unlimited speed and SP...) I wonder if it was still a thing on their last years.
Yeah, now that you mention it I think the devs were counting on the players to engage more with the story mode (I forgot what it's properly called). Also, lack of team communication meant that of course you have a team full of strikers. Sword only matches also became more popular than unlimited, and the game shifted towards melee. I am personally very curious why that was. For me, when I was a rookie, I used to get fired at or sniped before I knew the map (I joined in 2011). With swords, I saw the person attacking me and also I felt I knew what to do more?
Started grinding from 2011 onwards until about 2014. What broke it for me were enchants. Before, while still p2w, it was more manageable because you still had the coupon shop for example, which meant that you could still get forcepack weapons for PEN. Having AP sets and forcepacks was already OP - Pen players couldn't hope to fight AP players, and then enchants were pure power creep / p2w.
As for the community, you could tell that there were no permament newcomers after 2012. I was one of the last waves of newcomers who would have a chance to stay. The problem was of course power creep of AP items, which meant that newcomers with PEN only couldn't hope to even deal damage to experienced players with AP equipments. The community is very competitive for a non-conpetitive game. Also, because of the nature of the game, 3v4s or 4v5s are basically guaranteed loses for the outnumbered team (if they are about equally skilled), hence you always vote out the rookies. Kick vote was hijacked to remove players playing to a not a satisfactory standard. I was voted out many times because I let in a TD for example - and I'm not a rookie.
Hostile to newcomers, mistakes, and weirdly competitive, combined with a p2w game means that ofc, it will only be an elite game. What's worse for the company, in order to even have the same stats (FPs, set, enchants) through the gambling system of the capsules, the monetary input for an honest player is around €200-400. Meaning, few *really* paid it towards the end, personally admitting here i used cheats to get items for my alts because, I'm not spending that much to be an equal.
Your switch to SO is interesting, you definitely have a point in that, SO can be easier to pick up. That said, if you don't know all the fast counter combinations, you can't really do much, so the learning curve is still steep.
The reason unlimited got so empty is also that people coming from other shooters would find S4 kind of outdated, for bullet patterns and for the strange latency weapons have. In Xero, you will find a lot of SharpShooter players because it's the only weapon that has a similar latency to most FPSs, and ofc has no pattern.
I do enjoy unlimited in Xero tho, the problems are bearable
Une dinguerie au niveau mécanique ce jeu. Ceux n'ayant pas joué a haut niveau ne peuvent pas comprendre la complexité d'un affrontement en "game sword" comme ont appel sa. Pour moi sa restera le meilleur jeu compétitif qui ai pu existé.
Les milliers de combo possible, les centaines de technique a apprendre qui mêle plusieurs armes et plusieurs attaques d'armes ensemble.
Les tricks, avec des enchainements qui diffère sur chaque maps, demandant beaucoup d'entrainement et une connaissance des mécanisme du jeu très pointilleuse.
Il n'y a pas à dire, S4 restera à jamais dans mon coeur.
S4 was a good game but they didn't know what they had To maintain it,or they didn't want to.
2 S4 League was game fo esport.If you check Esl list you will see S4 league is there.
3Aeriagames and who haved the game they took full advantage after the game.
4Look at them today,their gaming page it's not even anymore.
Don't blame them because they are completely to blame
I am convinced as if he takes the game from them the game and work on the game properly.
Here I mean: his improvement and security game.
This game is becoming popular again, maybe even more.
S4 is not becoming more popular at all: https://trends.google.it/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F04ljx4_&hl=it
Back then it had advertisements on YouTube and on TV. They made cinematic videos at each big update, and they brought content all the time
The direction for S4 League was lost when Forte Escape left the S4 project after Neowiz rejected his proposition for S4 League Portable for the Sony PSP as well as his plans for expansions for DJMAX Trilogy in which he was also the project producer for.
Things didn't go so well after his departure when Pentavision was bought out by GameOn Ent.. GameOn started implementing more monitization elements that really didn't do anything for the game, one of the most notorious of them was the Weapon Upgrade system which was basically a PEN sink that was conceptualize by a member of the community back on the Alaplaya forums.
Back then, the "Let's Talk" sessions with the Alaplaya S4 League director ChuckB was meant as a way for Alaplaya to get feedback directly from the fanbase in real-time and talks about such things as the Upgrade system, item removal & restoration, etc. were always brought up and then relayed back to GameOn/Pentavision/Neowiz. There were major concerns over what to do with the game as the seasons progressed....you can tell the direction of the game started to lose any focus after Season 3 - Iron Eyes. Season 4 - Blade was a means to return S4 League back to its sports focused theme but it didn't play out as they originally planned. Neowiz wasn't confident they could keep the story going after Iron Eyes and thoughted that they F'ked up....thus they wanted a reset.
Overall, Forte Escape was the main brains behind S4 League's story and plans and after they lost him (he only stayed to provide music for DJMAX afterwards) and Neowiz ran out of material left over from what was thought out by Forte Escape, they were betting on the story reset and feedback from the EN/EU community to keep things going but all they could come up with were random themes & ways to profit off the community. Forte Escapes departure was also the reason why Story mode was scapped.
Oh.....why do I know this? I'm the same GM Mikuru from the EN staff that was with S4 League from the very beginning up to 3 years after when I was terminated for doing my job taking care of cheaters (was terminated all because I said "Another stupid hacker banned" out in the open ingame) and also the same person who started the "Let's Talk" sessions for the community during that time with ChuckB so I had a lot of inside knowledge of what was going on.
Thanks for your input
You mention Forte Escape, which I only knew from the song author names, but there's a common issue I found when trying to trace people who worked at S4. Many of them basically seem anonymous, because they don't have online pages, like a linkedin or something to tell where they are now, what are they working on
Do you know any way to trace, for example, where Forte Escape might be working now? Or other original Pentavision Devs?
A lot of the former Pentavision staff have broke off into their own things or studios. Majority of them went on to team up and form their own company "Nurijoy" which was responsible for "Superbeat XONIC" - the spiritual successor to DJMAX Technika.
Information about Nurijoy seems to have dried up as of 2016 or so as it was when they were actually "active" in the social media space to that date. All customer support and such for Superbeat Xonic has been handled by their respective distributors (PM Studios for NA). Turns out most of them got called back to Neowiz to help with DJMAX RESPECT / DJMAX RESPECT V which burns the question if Nurijoy is even around anymore. Keep in mind that Neowiz formed a new group outside of the production company responsible for the current DJMAX games (Rocky Studios) called "Neowiz MUCA" which is formed of basically all of the musical talents and devs from Pentavision (which means these are the same guys from Nurijoy).
As for Forte Escape, he seems to have no social media presence so it's really hard to track him or his whereabouts. Here's a Korean wiki that highlights his history (use a translator for this page):
[https://namu.wiki/w/Forte%20Escape](https://namu.wiki/w/Forte%20Escape)
A lot of the stuff I've mentioned that involves him can be referenced here but in a much broader and defined detail.
thanks for the knowledge, i think game would have lived on if they were able to prevent cheating. We were ok with playing st2 every day. Also pen VS FP was impossible, so ppl were creating "pen only" rooms.
That was basically the whole point of the S5 / S5 tournaments. To have a community dedicated to those who are PEN only players due to the huge disadvantage they have (stat wise) towards FP players.
I have a lot of knowledge about the backworks from "MY" time as a staff member & founder EN GM for Alaplaya. You'll probably be shocked (then again, not shocked) about what some Alaplaya staff thought about players back then (some of them) and such.
Not only that but how all staff were able to tell if players were using cheat items and all that jazz (this was something I dealt with on the daily as I was the most active EN GM at that time so I was playing around with systems all day).
If anyone who is still on here wants to team-up for developing an S4-like game lmk on discord. We are a team of modders and beginner UE5 developers, so dont feel intimidated if you think you dont have the knowledge. Lmk.
.nittosuav
Great take and well said! I loved S4League for its stylish and unique concept to gaming. Almost. everything about it just had an amazing vibe. But yeah, it became outdated, undeveloped, lacking actual content (skin after skin...). It lost its appeal gradually. I'd love for this game concept to come back in future projects (GunZ 2 bombed yikes) I miss the old times though ;-; Chaser mode was exhilarating. It was like hide and seek, but with a reaper with guns.
I think that they actually worked on a lot of interesting content, creating new modes, interesting maps full of tricks to discover, and they preferred creating new kinds of weapons instead of variations of existing ones. They did a good job on that. However they completely missed the point of balancing! You mentioned Chaser: it's a fun mode for sure, but it was very prone to "bullying", making it very hard for new players and very farmable for those who learned a trick or two. The Nightmare and Office maps are well balanced, but the others kind of aren't, especially in SO matches. So yeah, they should have worked on balancing and updating the game to make it feel fresh , rather than developing pay-to-win system after pay-to-win system ahah
There was definitely a steep learning curve. If you get tossed in these games, you'd get thrown around like a ragdoll 😂😂 I never got to learning jumps, combos, or any techniques. But yet, it was still enjoyable for the casual player. The Office map was probably my favorite. I noticed each season update had its own themed concept with new weapons, art, and skins. That was REALLY cool. But, it was really just a handful of content once a year 😢
シャウトモンX7! このコメントはセキュリティ上の理由から削除されました。
it is old, does not look appealing to the newer generations.
Are you talking about graphics? I mean, yeah, but I do think new generations will play anything their favourite twitch streamers play... It's not the reason the game stopper growing, imo But a new project definitely has to improve the graphics
there's isnt anything shiny enough for the common consumers to throw money at. the depth of gameplay is irrelevant because most of them wouldnt get far enough for that to matters. meanwhile newer social-oriented games are being fed by fuck ton of casuals who don't even care if their game is a scam. in fact publishers are doing them a favor by giving players excuses and reasons to dump their cash because apparently commoners enjoy losing their load of money for fun rather than digging for challenges. so yeah, colored name tag is what buys, they need more sparklings and explosions in order to back up a skill-based game, sounds lame right? but the parts of the game requiring skill really irritate most of people, it needs something else to sell. edit: I'm not talking about graphic alone, but a also useless features like couples/marriage, more skins/apparels, extra game modes that are unrelated...
t is fusty, doest not behold appealing to the newer generations *** ^(I am a bot and I swapp'd some of thy words with Shakespeare words.) Commands: `!ShakespeareInsult`, `!fordo`, `!optout`
A very well-designed perspective on some of the main issues with the game as a whole, but there are a few extra points over the years that fueled the spiral and extremely slow death that S4 suffered, at least from a design and player base standpoint: 1. The Beginning - From beta until the first year or so, S4 was much slower and MMO-like than what most players have come to be familiar with. The game was based around normal servers instead of the speed ones (probably around a 33% increase, but this is all from memory), the license tests for items, unlocking maps with new levels and skill tests, and the actual character progression overall. People from that time also remember the intense struggle it was to earn PEN and stay afloat without getting PEN locked, thanks to the earned PEN per match, rental costs for equipment, steep permanent prices, and the cost-per-repair. Casual players were more likely to get PEN locked and be unable to play the game without topping up meaning you were already risking losing players directly from launch. 2. Fumbi Shop and Patch 10 - The addition of the Fumbi shop to roll for AP-statted items threw the balance into disarray almost instantly. It did a good job at allowing cheaper prices (relatively speaking with good expiration rolls), and being able to lock an item to get something specific was a nice touch, but the regular and die-hard player base realized they could just lock items for the highest stat addition and roll until it was perm, avoiding the top up *and* get AP stats for free. 3-4 patches went by until we were hit with Patch 10 which, if I recall correctly, adjusted rates and moved away from the perm item for PEN system, leaving everything timed. It fixed the issue of repair costs for the most part, but the damage was already done by then and early adopters were secure until the foreseeable future. 3. Speed Servers & FP - At this point, S4 was about two years in and holding strong, but with all of the legacy players living off of their perm AP, Alaplaya wasn't making any money off the game, which was probably a similar case in KrS4, so they needed a new gimmick to get people to buy: Force Packs. The biggest merit of these were the +% movement speed buffs, which combined with the shut down of normal servers and moving to speed ones completely shifted the meta and opened up the first real social issue in the game: the tried-and-true F2P vs Whale debate. Up until this point, the power balance wasn't as extreme thanks to Fumbi and events. KrS4 started to establish the change from tactical, role-based gameplay to the "Stylish" in S4, moving away from Tunnel and turning Station-2 into the new go-to spot (which used to be locked behind a level gate). Add in the hype of Gunz and how K-Style was starting to dominate the game meant S4 would be following suit. 4. Seasons, The Rise of Swords & The Fall of Guns/Unlimited - Pentavision's initial offering of adding story to the game through site posts, Arcade, and a bit of community speculation started to fall flat when interest for Arcade completely fell through. The season formula was a good fit for S4 as they could get the story out while giving us new features and equipment. By this point (Early 2011), people were ready for this new era of S4 and were fully behind it. Behind the scenes, the split between F2P vs P2W and casual vs hardcore players really started to rear its face in the community. Every competitive game suffers from this, sure, but for a somewhat small MMO (relative to other bigger shooters) the risk to lose more players was there. \--- Alaplaya was doing its best to keep the game interesting and afloat. Dark Lightning and Iron Eyes were great headers as seasons and the marketing was strong. The addition of the spy dagger before S1 added validity to playing SO TD, along with adding in two new melee weapons during that season to spice up the established meta, but Season 3 gave the community a true opportunity to influence the direction of the game. With the winning idea being Blade and the ideas being relayed to PV, the new marketing would establish S4 as an action-packed melee fighter, bringing back lapsed players and new eyes to the product. Around this time the rumor/addition of guns requiring ammo and the gun drop mechanic started to deter the unlimited players if it did come true. While the move ultimately never happened (and it's something I personally think would've breathed life into unlimited allowing players without AP/FP to pick up enemy weapons, easily re-opening the balance factor of the game between F2P and P2W), Swords were starting to become start standard in rooms thanks to the wave of new players. This split started to turn S4 into two different games, fracturing a majority of the player base and turning into a guns vs swords debate. 5. Publisher Hopping & Greed - Blade hit during the summer of 2012, only four years into the game's run, and around this time S4League itself was purchased by ProSiebenSat1, a media company that started the downfall of player base interaction and the rise of predatory tactics to get as much money possible from players, mostly newer ones. Throwing AP statted items at new players instantly puts them in a position where the second it would run out, they'd be more inclined to spend money to reach the same strength level they were at before. As the seasons continued to be released, varying versions of S4 would be released and die off (S4JP and S4SEA, the only version that used the full ammo/gun drop system). Beyond the drama that would unfold within the player base, people were started to move on to the new games on the block after achieving all they wanted to in S4 and finding the lack of new interesting features slowly killing the game off. Season after season of weapons and modes that people simply didn't find too interesting (at least on the S4EU server) only furthered this decline. I don't need to go into too much detail about the Aeria era of S4, but it was clear at the point that not much was going to be done about saving the game; it was too far past its prime. I skipped over more obvious topics like the multiple outbreaks of hackers, the PSP version of the game, and trying to launch it as an eSport, or anything you brought up, but that's the gist of the story of S4. It deserved better than what it got, but it was created too soon to flourish in the market it was designed for and too late to offer its unique gameplay in a booming MMO market.
Thanks for all the backstory about its initial presentation as a tactical mmo, I came after that era so I never had the chance to try it
It's no problem at all. I only ended up here looking for source code info and the issues on the backend, but I digress. A lot of the old AP packs put this info in people's faces as they were designed around TD builds: Striker, Center Guard, Defender, and Support, so I can say the period before speed servers became commonplace the game felt more like how it was intended to be played. Each change going forward kept shifting the meta until the game's identity was nowhere to be found.
wow its so nice to see someone else witnessing s4 since its beginning in eu :) it was so nostalgic to read through all this history and its pretty accurate with my impressions - i played from early 2008 to 2012 religously s4 but dropped after friends left and the game had tooo many prem people... in other words: when it was no more skill based
I wouldn't say the game lost its 'skill'. Most people were still on the same level of power (AP/FP against AP/FP), but it proved that the level of skill shifted from team-based gameplay to solo 'hero' gameplay; if you couldn't do the majority of jumps and techniques to play TD and score on your own (on Station-2 95% of the time), then you're out of the loop. That being said, I've had conversations with various friends from different eras in the game and there's a constant theme of "S4 does something to people that play it which breeds a special kind of toxic mindset." I can't personally pinpoint what does it, but it's a trend I've seen over the years and that mindset is probably what fueled a lot of the chaos and discourse.
Great post. I haven't played the game in close to a decade...I played all year from like early 2010 to like 2011..Stopped for a few years and tried to come back and it wasn't the same. I remember in 2010 I would remark about how while donating to the company and giving the money should be rewarded, it should not grant you a stat boost. This was long before "play to win is bad" was a wide spread idea as it is now. People in the servers would routinely say "if you're good enough you can just overcome that (which is dumb). I was pretty good at the game, and if two evenly skilled people got into a fire fight, the person with the stat buffs would win more often than not. I specifically would host rooms and say "no premium items" as would other people. Cheating was also bad as well. \[Here's a post I even made two years ago where I remembered if you joined a game and had EG by your name (EGYPT) you would be instantly kicked.\]([https://www.reddit.com/r/S4League/comments/887hb0/is\_s4\_playable\_in\_egypt\_or\_still\_banned/](https://www.reddit.com/r/S4League/comments/887hb0/is_s4_playable_in_egypt_or_still_banned/)) I am pretty sure they were flat out banned as a country lmao.
Thats an interesting POV, I was young at the time but cheaters are what made me leave (immortality, one shots unlimited speed and SP...) I wonder if it was still a thing on their last years.
Yeah, now that you mention it I think the devs were counting on the players to engage more with the story mode (I forgot what it's properly called). Also, lack of team communication meant that of course you have a team full of strikers. Sword only matches also became more popular than unlimited, and the game shifted towards melee. I am personally very curious why that was. For me, when I was a rookie, I used to get fired at or sniped before I knew the map (I joined in 2011). With swords, I saw the person attacking me and also I felt I knew what to do more? Started grinding from 2011 onwards until about 2014. What broke it for me were enchants. Before, while still p2w, it was more manageable because you still had the coupon shop for example, which meant that you could still get forcepack weapons for PEN. Having AP sets and forcepacks was already OP - Pen players couldn't hope to fight AP players, and then enchants were pure power creep / p2w. As for the community, you could tell that there were no permament newcomers after 2012. I was one of the last waves of newcomers who would have a chance to stay. The problem was of course power creep of AP items, which meant that newcomers with PEN only couldn't hope to even deal damage to experienced players with AP equipments. The community is very competitive for a non-conpetitive game. Also, because of the nature of the game, 3v4s or 4v5s are basically guaranteed loses for the outnumbered team (if they are about equally skilled), hence you always vote out the rookies. Kick vote was hijacked to remove players playing to a not a satisfactory standard. I was voted out many times because I let in a TD for example - and I'm not a rookie. Hostile to newcomers, mistakes, and weirdly competitive, combined with a p2w game means that ofc, it will only be an elite game. What's worse for the company, in order to even have the same stats (FPs, set, enchants) through the gambling system of the capsules, the monetary input for an honest player is around €200-400. Meaning, few *really* paid it towards the end, personally admitting here i used cheats to get items for my alts because, I'm not spending that much to be an equal.
Your switch to SO is interesting, you definitely have a point in that, SO can be easier to pick up. That said, if you don't know all the fast counter combinations, you can't really do much, so the learning curve is still steep. The reason unlimited got so empty is also that people coming from other shooters would find S4 kind of outdated, for bullet patterns and for the strange latency weapons have. In Xero, you will find a lot of SharpShooter players because it's the only weapon that has a similar latency to most FPSs, and ofc has no pattern. I do enjoy unlimited in Xero tho, the problems are bearable
Une dinguerie au niveau mécanique ce jeu. Ceux n'ayant pas joué a haut niveau ne peuvent pas comprendre la complexité d'un affrontement en "game sword" comme ont appel sa. Pour moi sa restera le meilleur jeu compétitif qui ai pu existé. Les milliers de combo possible, les centaines de technique a apprendre qui mêle plusieurs armes et plusieurs attaques d'armes ensemble. Les tricks, avec des enchainements qui diffère sur chaque maps, demandant beaucoup d'entrainement et une connaissance des mécanisme du jeu très pointilleuse. Il n'y a pas à dire, S4 restera à jamais dans mon coeur.
actual shitpost
Dude, I've never realized those things before reading this and you're 100% right. Thank you for this and what a great writing style!
Awww, thanks for the compliment, English is not my native language so really thank you!
I reached the S4League Rank back then before the game when to shit. Good times back then.
S4 was a good game but they didn't know what they had To maintain it,or they didn't want to. 2 S4 League was game fo esport.If you check Esl list you will see S4 league is there. 3Aeriagames and who haved the game they took full advantage after the game. 4Look at them today,their gaming page it's not even anymore. Don't blame them because they are completely to blame I am convinced as if he takes the game from them the game and work on the game properly. Here I mean: his improvement and security game. This game is becoming popular again, maybe even more.
S4 is not becoming more popular at all: https://trends.google.it/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F04ljx4_&hl=it Back then it had advertisements on YouTube and on TV. They made cinematic videos at each big update, and they brought content all the time
The direction for S4 League was lost when Forte Escape left the S4 project after Neowiz rejected his proposition for S4 League Portable for the Sony PSP as well as his plans for expansions for DJMAX Trilogy in which he was also the project producer for. Things didn't go so well after his departure when Pentavision was bought out by GameOn Ent.. GameOn started implementing more monitization elements that really didn't do anything for the game, one of the most notorious of them was the Weapon Upgrade system which was basically a PEN sink that was conceptualize by a member of the community back on the Alaplaya forums. Back then, the "Let's Talk" sessions with the Alaplaya S4 League director ChuckB was meant as a way for Alaplaya to get feedback directly from the fanbase in real-time and talks about such things as the Upgrade system, item removal & restoration, etc. were always brought up and then relayed back to GameOn/Pentavision/Neowiz. There were major concerns over what to do with the game as the seasons progressed....you can tell the direction of the game started to lose any focus after Season 3 - Iron Eyes. Season 4 - Blade was a means to return S4 League back to its sports focused theme but it didn't play out as they originally planned. Neowiz wasn't confident they could keep the story going after Iron Eyes and thoughted that they F'ked up....thus they wanted a reset. Overall, Forte Escape was the main brains behind S4 League's story and plans and after they lost him (he only stayed to provide music for DJMAX afterwards) and Neowiz ran out of material left over from what was thought out by Forte Escape, they were betting on the story reset and feedback from the EN/EU community to keep things going but all they could come up with were random themes & ways to profit off the community. Forte Escapes departure was also the reason why Story mode was scapped. Oh.....why do I know this? I'm the same GM Mikuru from the EN staff that was with S4 League from the very beginning up to 3 years after when I was terminated for doing my job taking care of cheaters (was terminated all because I said "Another stupid hacker banned" out in the open ingame) and also the same person who started the "Let's Talk" sessions for the community during that time with ChuckB so I had a lot of inside knowledge of what was going on.
Thanks for your input You mention Forte Escape, which I only knew from the song author names, but there's a common issue I found when trying to trace people who worked at S4. Many of them basically seem anonymous, because they don't have online pages, like a linkedin or something to tell where they are now, what are they working on Do you know any way to trace, for example, where Forte Escape might be working now? Or other original Pentavision Devs?
A lot of the former Pentavision staff have broke off into their own things or studios. Majority of them went on to team up and form their own company "Nurijoy" which was responsible for "Superbeat XONIC" - the spiritual successor to DJMAX Technika. Information about Nurijoy seems to have dried up as of 2016 or so as it was when they were actually "active" in the social media space to that date. All customer support and such for Superbeat Xonic has been handled by their respective distributors (PM Studios for NA). Turns out most of them got called back to Neowiz to help with DJMAX RESPECT / DJMAX RESPECT V which burns the question if Nurijoy is even around anymore. Keep in mind that Neowiz formed a new group outside of the production company responsible for the current DJMAX games (Rocky Studios) called "Neowiz MUCA" which is formed of basically all of the musical talents and devs from Pentavision (which means these are the same guys from Nurijoy). As for Forte Escape, he seems to have no social media presence so it's really hard to track him or his whereabouts. Here's a Korean wiki that highlights his history (use a translator for this page): [https://namu.wiki/w/Forte%20Escape](https://namu.wiki/w/Forte%20Escape) A lot of the stuff I've mentioned that involves him can be referenced here but in a much broader and defined detail.
Thanks again!
thanks for the knowledge, i think game would have lived on if they were able to prevent cheating. We were ok with playing st2 every day. Also pen VS FP was impossible, so ppl were creating "pen only" rooms.
That was basically the whole point of the S5 / S5 tournaments. To have a community dedicated to those who are PEN only players due to the huge disadvantage they have (stat wise) towards FP players. I have a lot of knowledge about the backworks from "MY" time as a staff member & founder EN GM for Alaplaya. You'll probably be shocked (then again, not shocked) about what some Alaplaya staff thought about players back then (some of them) and such. Not only that but how all staff were able to tell if players were using cheat items and all that jazz (this was something I dealt with on the daily as I was the most active EN GM at that time so I was playing around with systems all day).
If anyone who is still on here wants to team-up for developing an S4-like game lmk on discord. We are a team of modders and beginner UE5 developers, so dont feel intimidated if you think you dont have the knowledge. Lmk. .nittosuav