Crucible Dev Team Priorities Include Voice Chat, Better Onboarding, Improving Match Flow

Crucible launched into early access -- or "pre-season" as Amazon Games Studios is calling it -- just last week and its reviews have been mixed. Like, literally "Mixed," as it's currently got a 44% positive rating on Steam. The dev team knows it's got a lot of work ahead of it, and today posted a video detailing what some of that work would be.

Head of Community Josh Davis started off the video explaining that, yes, the team is listening to feedback. In addition to dealing with the overall stability of the game and its matchmaking, they're also working on larger updates and future changes, handing off the virtual mic to Franchise Lead Colin Johanson. Among the changes he described were:

• Improving the player onboarding experience, making the tutorial optional and improving the overall experience, as well as providing loading screen tips.
• Toggle-able in-match scoreboard and surrender feature.
• Improving overall performance.
• Improving match flow, which Johanson described as "the process that it takes from actually queueing, getting all the way into a game, and getting into a match."
• Improving the UX, especially in Heart of the Hives, so players can "better navigate within the map" (mini-map, pleeeeez).
• Better feedback in combat.

And then there's what Johanson called "the big one": the ability to communicate better in combat. In addition to improving the ping system, he said that voice chat would be coming to the game before text chat, even though the team had hoped to deliver both at the same time.

I've got a few more things I'd like to see addressed, but this is a good start in dealing with some of the game's more critical issues. Here's hoping that Crucible gets enough slack from the people in charge to take the time it needs to improve.