Alpha

Hey guys,

Obviously with the recent announcement that the game will no longer be supported, a lot of people have felt disappointed.

I wanted to try to mark the end of development with a positive and create a video showcasing some of the best moments since the release of Bleeding Edge.

Please check out the announcement video below, and if possible, submit your own clips for the Community Montage! Let's try and come together one last time to produce a send-off that the game deserves!

Announcement Video with details on how to send your clips

Feel free to ask any questions here!

Many Thanks

I'm gonna go through the effort of logging into my microsoft account to respond to this. The assumption that the community didn't lift a finger, or did nothing is bullshit. There are people on this forum, on reddit, even people in discord who managed to nag tetris enough to get a respond out of him (which was that they were still working on bleeding edge, they just couldn't say anything, and this ended up not being true. they just stopped working on it. maybe a lie or they changed their mind just like that.) There was even a poll on reddit talking about what the developers were doing during the silence, with most of the % basically saying (they are just sitting on their ass.) I actually thought it was rude as fuck, but there was an upheaval. Players have been prodding NT CONSTANTLY to get them to respond and get shit to happen. At the same time, players like misfitbanjax worked their ass off to keep the community together and active, hosting event nights and helping new players. During all of this, NT still said NOTHING. And after they said they were done supporting the game THEY STILL SAID NOTHING. NOTHING BUT SILENCE. Even after all of the criticism.

And there have been people who said things like "guys it takes time, just be patient" and "well I play TF2 and we haven't gotten an update in years with this game that's been out since 2007 =/" People's opinions matter but there were way more people who were frustrated then those who treated the situation with kid gloves.

As I type this, NT will ignore it and you.

While Bleeding Edge still remains and will continue to remain playable for the foreseeable future, yesterday's announcement stating that there will no longer be any content updates definitely feels like endgame for the franchise, less than a year later from March 24th's full release. Although many felt like this announcement was inevitable, it doesn't hurt any less to finally have that confirmation.

I don't really like to speculate on why this decision has been made, nor do I really want to use this thread to criticise how and where things could have been better. However, a lot of false information is being thrown around, such as the developers never cared or they simply gave up, the community was too toxic, they should've gone F2P, etc etc. I think the most likely outcome is the prioritisation of Ninja Theory's other upcoming projects, as they stated themselves in their announcement. Ninja Theory have earned themselves a pretty valuable reputation since the release of Hellblade, so much so that they were acquired by Microsoft Studios back in June 2018. Bleeding Edge was already well into development by this point. I'd imagine getting a brand new Ninja Theory-stamped game straight onto Game Pass in a somewhat lacklustre Game Pass market at the time (multiplayer, moba) would add a lot of immediate value to it. Obviously I don't have the official numbers, but I'd wager a huge percentage of players trying Bleeding Edge came from a Game Pass subscription, which is very much in line with the demographic of players you run into to this day - in fact there has always been a steady number of brand new players trickling in. With Ninja Theory's new projects, they are seemingly pushing new boundaries in the gaming industry and it's something to be genuinely excited about. I'd imagine all 3 of which, most definitely Hellblade 2, will be Series X system sellers therefore there's probably a decent amount of pressure from Microsoft to get these projects shipped. While the core community certainly believe Bleeding Edge can grow and become something special with more support, seeing current numbers on the game probably don't give enough reason for resources to remain on Bleeding Edge with the overhanging importance of the other 3 projects as stated. The developers of Bleeding Edge certainly don't deserve any resentment for this decision, and they absolutely did care, and still do very much. The closed Alpha period of the game's development was almost as long as the shelf-life of the full release. With the game's unfortunate release time right when the coronavirus pandemic truly hit the globe for the first time, and with Ninja Theory employees working from home ever since then, I'd imagine it was even harder to continue to update Bleeding Edge as much as they would've liked along with also staying on schedule with their other 3 projects.

Now that's out of the way, I just wanted to say THANK YOU to the Bleeding Edge developers from myself and the community. From a personal standpoint, it has been an amazing journey. I first played Bleeding Edge back in June 2019, the first ever closed Alpha build of the game. I believe there were only around 50 people per region permitted to play at this point, during a 2 hour window every week. I didn't have much of an idea of what I was getting into, but I quickly felt very welcomed. I met some amazing people, as well as some of the developers who regularly joined in playing and chatting with the growing community. I remember always looking forward to that 2 hour session every week, and the time absolutely flying by when it eventually came around. I remember messing around in the Dojo when the servers were offline, trying out cool combos and looking for easter eggs with the community on the Discord. I have written NOVELS worth of feedback and discussion on the forums, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. The game was very different back then, and I wish a lot more people got to experience Bleeding Edge in that moment. To this day, I still hop on almost daily, with every character maxed at level 30. I really do love the game.

My favourite parts of Bleeding Edge, in no particular order:
-The character designs! Wow! Every character felt so unique and personable.
-The soundtrack! I get heavy nostalgia when listening to "Life Packs Punches", takes me back to those moments of anticipation while waiting for the clock to hit 7pm so I could queue up during the Alpha
-The EVOLUTION the game went through! Again I feel very privileged to have witnessed this, but it's truly amazing how much the game naturally grew and evolved. Not only with balance changes and QoL updates from the devs, but players discovering cool new strategies and combos. I remember one of the most common criticisms back in the Alpha was the game lacking depth and that's been well and truly disproved with present day Bleeding Edge
-The devs - how unbelievably friendly they were towards me and the rest of the community. Playing and chatting with you all was an absolute pleasure

I encourage you all to share your own favourite parts or favourite moments as well!

I've been trying to come out with something to say for a while now, but for once it's been difficult for me to fill a page with writing on here without stopping! I'm truly sad to hear that this game will no longer be receiving support, and the days of being able to still find a match are numbered. But I will leave this game with some amazing memories, truly one of the best experiences in gaming I've had, so THANK YOU for everything! I wish you the best in your future endeavours. Thank you to the community for being awesome as well.

The biggest detriment to the game in its current state is those who consistently 4 stack in public matches. For me personally, it's the reason why I haven't hopped on for a while. I don't understand why those same people cannot just split themselves into duos, they'd have far better quality of matches and they wouldn't turn so many new players away from the game.

On the other hand, the game is tailor made for a 4 stack vs 4 stack experience. If we had a larger playerbase, therefore a larger pool of 4 stacks, it wouldn't be a problem at all, in fact it would be encouraged. However, like I said, in the game's current state, it has a tremendously large negative impact. If it's turning me away, then it's definitely turning Game Pass Gary away who is playing his 3rd ever game.

In regards to "exploits", there really isn't any at all. Emote cancelling is not an exploit. It does exactly the same as staggering your combos does, you just press the emote button in between. There's nothing exploitative about that. Mount cancelling tanks so they were infinitely hitstunned WAS an exploit and was patched. If anything, emote cancelling is healthy for the game - it adds a lot more depth to the combat, and along with parrying, the game has evolved a long way since everyone used their entire combo strings one after the other. HOWEVER I can definitely understand the poor taste in using these methods in a 4 stack versus complete new players.

They abandoned the game, which is sad really. Bleeding Edge has potential just had to keep rolling out patches and updates, that's how these type of games work. Characters, New Mods, Cosmetics, New Game Modes, Balancing, Lore, an in game store for cosmetics, done. You now have your self a complete game. But no you wanna stay silent and abandon the game and expect people to buy your future products. Really?

I just wanted to say I hope the devs at Ninja Theory are doing okay. I know there has been trouble with the game and players' frustration , as well as the pandemic making things even more difficult. I can imagine it has made parts of your lives very stressful, so I hope you guys can continue to take care of yourselves while working on Bleeding Edge .

Yep, this is definitely a great place to start, however the 1st section is definitely not inclusive to all of the technical problems that need fixing. Just off the top of my head as I'm bored on a Wednesday afternoon, I can think of:

• Makutu voice line saying point A when selecting point C and vice versa
• Queue randomly breaking, cancelling and then need to restart the whole game
• If Maeve lands a Cage on Azrael Chrysalis in the air then it falls to the ground
• In-game audio breaking frequently, especially lack of sound in backfills
• Sometimes, if your controller disconnects during the pre-lobby screen, your screen will be greyed out (as if you needed to re-connect your controller, just without the actual prompt) and you will be unable to move once you have selected your character.
• Buttercup loses stamina when charged whilst burling
• Buttercup's hook goes through some solid objects
• Unbearable freezes/frame rate drops multiple times a match. Text Chat usually crashes my game completely.
• In-game team chat always seems temperamental despite all options being correct.
• Certain mods don't work at all e.g getting Can't Touch Us 25% quicker (thank god tbh) and Azrael Soul damage % increase.
• Cells get stuck under the map on Jersey Sink, in the mini trains on Landslide and other random places
• Kill feed doubles regularly
• Getting stuck in specific map spots e.g Boneyard under Point B
• Zero walls can be extremely temperamental, especially when high ground to low ground and vice versa
• You can parry a curse and it can also cancel stuff like cass swoop and makutu barge
• Mekko shield won't recharge sometimes when bubble breaks
• If lifeline cancels while mekko is surging, it cancels surge. Might be intended but just feels weird.
• Bastardo shouldn't fall into Makutu's Charge if he Leaps on him from behind
• Katamori can juggle infinitely if next to a wall
• Health pack in the corner near the electric fence on Aqueducts often has a weird invisible wall
• Gizmo bouncer gets stuck, places weirdly, places and can't be used, won't place on perfectly normal ground, etc
• Hydrocore fire doesn't register for a full 2 seconds, can also kill if you walk close to the edge above.
• You can peek a brew to spawn on sky gardens
• If you jump and use oil slick as butter you get a speed boost
• Burnout doesn't work at all sometimes. Just doesn't register the input
• Super icon randomly changes during fights so you can't see its percentage
• Killing blow sounds when you don't get killing blow, can be especially annoying as maeve with schadenfreude
• Cell Mates Cage is really weird, if you get close enough you can still fire some projectiles inside e.g. Daemon shuriken.
• The radius on the bomb in Dying Gift when it drops often shows as too small, if you're standing outside of the circle you still get hit sometimes.

It does make me sad that there are so many of the same bugs I run into daily to the point I'm just numb to them all. There are some that I can live with and I obviously expect things to go wrong sometimes, but a lot of these genuinely hinder the experience, are relatively common, have been a thing since Alpha and Beta and have been given as feedback multiple times. I do wonder how many new players have been turned off by the technical issues alone.

...but looking at Discord and seeing devs unaware of Azrael's DPS mod not working and Makutu's Fighter page not up to date, I'd wager the majority of these have also somehow blown under the noses of those who "read all feedback".

@Surrtan I bookmarked this