Bleeding Edge

Surrtan

I got time, energy, and a lot of visits to official articles & streams to learn about the development of Bleeding Edge, and after listening to the interview with the senior character artist at Ninja Theory Bao "BaoPow" Vu, I thought that it might be a good idea to create a post in which I try to get us, the BE community, to understand the development team better.

This post is my compilation and analysis/Interpretation of answers that the development team have provided to frequently asked questions and demands about the game.
I hope that it will prove useful or at least insightful to some of you.

Who exactly are "THE DEVS" ?

First things 1st, it seems that many of us have a flawed understanding of what it means to be part of the dev team, and believe that any single one of the development team is an all powerful entity (in the realm of Bleeding Edge) and they have the power to give, take, and change anything in the game; because he or she IS A DEV!
And well, as much as I want that to be true, it is not really the case. While the team does communicate and hold meetings in which they give suggestions, advice, and discuss the requests of the community almost every day, the largest part of the very small team works on executing, modeling, and coding the game.
The fundamental designs and the directing of the game falls under the responsibility of the following 3:

Rahni Tucker, the creative director of the game.
Gerald Poon, the principal project designer, and the creator of all the 5 maps that the game had at launch
Andy Knowles, senior designer and the one who gave us the latest map Hydrocore.

Why am I telling you this? Because I don't want us to think that "the devs are not listening to us" and "the devs are not giving us ranked" etc. Truth is the devs really do read almost everything that we express on the official discord and on the forum.
So rest assured that the issue you politely complained about has been noted, and the team will get to it as soon as they can. Getting angry and upset with the devs will only be counter productive for both parties.
The development of the game is moving forward, and it's moving in a productive direction that prioritizes certain issues over others.

How does the plan currently look like?

Like we've been told before, the priority right now is the stability and optimization of the game. Yes, some issues have indeed remained since launch, and we are upset about that, but other problems have been removed on the other hand, and at the same time they're doing what they can to not prove lacking in terms of new content.
So we got Mekko on May 1st. Hydrocore and the huge batch of skins 3 weeks after, daily quests in the beginning of this month, and upcoming we got the reworked Makutu as well as the leaderboards. All while the priority is still the optimization and improvement of the state of the game.
So yea, meme-ing and joking is fun, and I'm sure the devs don't mind, but honestly, I think the devs have been, and are doing a great job that we appreciate.

Are the devs even planning to keep working on the game for years to come?

Very short answer: YES
Short answer: Yes, there is a development plan that is being followed AND they want to keep moving forward with the game even after the current goals have been met.
Extra hint: The devs read all the suggestions. ALL OF THEM.

RANKED????

Rahni Tucker, the creative director of the game has said in a stream On the 30th of April 1 day before the release of Mekko, that the implentation of a ranked mode is very high up on the priority list.
Does that mean soon? Lolnope, like I said the plan right now is to further optimize the game. Nobody wants ranked with double deaths and this MM that we're all frustrated with, and the devs understand that, so they're working on it.

What does the future have in store in terms of content?

I can tell you this: A lot.
This includes, but is not limited to: fighters, maps, features, and game modes. Gerald Poon, the principal project designer of the game is constantly and actively experimenting with new game modes and ideas.
Rahni Tucker has even talked about an idea of hoverboards having cool tricks that you could do.
So if you are interested in seeing not only new content being added, but the gameplay that we currently have; evolving to something greater, then the future has got you covered. Just stick around!

What about balancing & meta?

The dev team looks at both the community response, as well as analytics when it comes to fighters and kits.
What the creative director said that they actively want to avoid; is a knee jerk reaction to a fighter that the community has not fully understood yet, and not had enough time to think of a counter, but balancing is important to them, and should it prove to be necessary, they will step in, like they are doing with Makutu right now, but expect these balancing processes to be slow, even for our sake because we need time to adapt, learn and understand new fighters and concepts.

My own concerns:

Last but not least, I want to take a moment to voice a concern that I have for the game.
For the longest time, the QA team for the game were the devs themselves, and this was during the Alpha in 2019, and the beta in early 2020. Now not even the devs are play-testing the game. We saw them play-testing a feature once, before the implementation of the daily quests, but that was one time only, and I'm afraid a competitive game like Bleeding Edge needs a lot more than that.
So what are the plans for the future? Or rather, how is the testing being done right now?
I believe that I am not the only one who would like to know.

Now in case anybody has managed to read this far, then I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart. It would mean very much to me to hear thoughts about things mentioned here, or corrections to things I was wrong about, or simply to know that someone read my article

Thank you
SultanCat

b4njAx

@Surrtan This is an amazing post. Sincerely, thank you! It's super informative and has served to fortify my already strong faith in the devs. I truly hope the majority of players take the time to read this.

And since I finally have proper names...

To Rahni, Gerald & Andy
(plus the rest of your colleagues)
You all have my utmost gratitude for what ye have created and allowed us to play! I personally have always felt ye have handled balancing remarkably well. I'd also like to thank ye for each and every update since launch. Every little bug fix as well as every new bit of content.
To Gerald specifically, I love your maps. Environmental hazards are a wonderful addition and the verticality of each and every one of the 5 launch maps makes positioning super fun and interesting.
To Andy, same thanks to you for Hydrocore, it's a wonderful map and easily one of my favourites! I love the sound for when the flames are turned on in particular (feel free to hook me up with an mp3 of the sfx if you're blushing :P). I can't wait to see anymore map additions on your part!
As for Rahni, thank you most of all for having your vision of what this game can be and sharing it with us.
Keep up the amazing work, all of ye.

Sincerely,
-Banjax

ViciousCJB

@Surrtan The board tricks sound exquisite, and I'm excited to see the new games modes!

I feel the knee jerk reaction of characters needing reworking can be fixed with proper tutorials for them. Too often have I seen people not utilizing a character to its full potential due to lack of understanding their play style. This can easily be taught with a simple video laying out the strategies unique to each character. No coding of a new tutorial required. Just some hands on teaching by the pros who made this game.

Ranked is definitely something that should be put on hold until stabilization is aquired, but the state of casual play is frustrating. I hope that when ranked is achieved, the leavers penalty and proper rank matchmaking will be implemented in. You'll have a lot more angry players if 2 pro teams battling in ranked mode struggle cause one of their teammates are a far lower level than them. An inexperienced player messing up their leaderboard rank is not just something they're going to forgive. That's the kind of stuff that needs to stay in casual play.

Those are 2 of the biggest things I personally feel should be addressed, and I'm excited to see new maps, characters, and music. Really hoping for a 4th healer so there can be an all healer match! That would be an interesting game to play!

b4njAx

@ViciousCJB To NT's credit, I believe they paired up with Arekkz Gaming to make those fighter guides. Those are easily found in the Watch Zone. And for more advanced guides I recommend alexcode's videos on YouTube. So yeah, I think what you're suggesting is there already, it's just that people don't really look for it.

Also I 100% agree about ranked being put on hold. It won't function right without enough players and it's not gonna guarantee enough players joining just because it's there.

XxUnReached

this post just make me really happy to see than the devs are really given all they can for the good state of the game.
apreciated with this post @Surrtan o w o

Matolius

Good reporting here, @Surrtan. Thanks for this. I imagine it can get to be a bit much at times when everyone on these forums is constantly pointing out the issues with the game and talking about what should be better without explicitly acknowledging that the whole reason we offer such criticisms is that it's a great game to begin with and we're addicted to playing it. So definite props, and huge thanks, to all the devs and NT overall, and hopefully all our conversation on here is productive for them.

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