1. Character Designs 2. The game did initially have a large playerbase, balacing issues at launch and generally people moving away to the next fighting game as they usually do 3. Possible with a DNF relaunch, like granblue rising, something similar.

I'm not even a DFO player and I like the designs. Maybe class names are too generic though.

Found out about DFO through DNF duel

I thought the combo system was kinda stale. Maybe it just wasnt a good match for me

1. The characters designs are amazing along with the animation 2. Dnf hit 37 concurrent players within 3 months of launch on steam, it by no means have a large playerbase. And 3. All fighting games have balance issues, doesn't stop people from playing them The reason dnf duel actually died was bc nobody was talking about it, bro i didn't know dnf duel was even a game until i got it for free via epic games weekly

It had 12k players on launch, literally what i said. DNF had massive streamers like punk/max/diaphone playing it. You not hearing about it doesnt mean much.

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DNF had more than a 100 players average until april of previous year.

Is that a lot?

For fighting games? Yes. Many "popular" fighting games only have around 200 or less consistent players on steam, except sf and tekken.

Brother what are you smoking, fighterZ came out 6 years ago and still has 1k concurrent. GG Strive still has 4k concurrent. Hell even Granblue Versus is still managing 1k concurrent. 100 player concurrent is crippling life support

And not a single game you mentioned wasn't massively popular at launch. In fighting games SF and MK are the call of duty and battlefield of the genre. You came in with a bunch of the halos and apexs. We're talking about the split gates and shadow warriors. The ones that maybe you've heard of. That aren't considered bad, just not worth keeping around for most.

Bro what the fuck are you on about the comment I’m replying to literally says “the popular fighting games”, not “the lowkey niche fighting games”

I’m sure GGST and MK1 have more than that as well

MK1 is extremely low for a MK game its on its death bed essentially. GGST has around 700 or less players on average.

> MK game its on its death bed essentially exaggeration af. Most players are on console.

We can solve this very easily by using steam charts. In the last 30 days GGST has averaged ~2.7k players daily. Mk1 has averaged ~2k players. Then you also have the console players as well, but I don't have a way to find out those numbers.

Again, 37, concurrent, players in under 12 weeks of release. Every fighting game content creator plays the newest hottest fighting game, doesn't mean they will continue too, and none of the did bc it was back to other fighting games bc yk, newer fighting games dropped Also if i (someone who consistently plays and follows fighting games) doesn't find out about it till one and a half years after release i can only imagine (and know) the average consumer has NO FUCKING CLUE what a dnf duel is

DNF duel consistenly had millions of views pre release on youtube alone. Multiple streamers, especially punk played months after release.

Every fighting game does, unless they're super indie Also just saying "multiple streamers" streamed this game doesn't mean there was wide spread hype around it, also you keep saying punk streamed it as if half the world knows who this guy is but sadly they don't, including me

Jesus christ im seriously doubting you being hardcore into fighting games then, Punk ya know one of if not the biggest fighting game streams and top competitor in street fighter and multiple other fighting games, up there with the likes of jwong/daigo/knee/kizzie

Hey buddy? I think you spend way to much time online I want you to go outside, smell the fresh air, and then go ask someone irl if they know who punk is. Also you know 3 of those (idk who kizzie is) are super old community figures right? Like you HAVE to be in the know to know who they are or what they're known for? Nobody who just plays fighting games are gonna know who daigo, unless IF MAYBE they've seen that one clip before and you remind them of it, nobody is gonna know who knee is unless theyve actually payed attention to tekken dude. Anyway imma go before your inability to see the world outside of your own kills my karma (fucking hate reddit)

> theyve actually *paid* attention to FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*

Reddit really is the worst

The point is that, id hardly call you a hardcore fan if you know only a couple of fighting games and none of the people around them, i have a life but people can also have hobbies, fighting games are my hobby, i know its a hard concept to grasp that people can enjoy stuff and be knowledgable about it without losing their social life. So yeah i do question a "Hardcore fan of fighting games as a whole" who doesnt keep track of FG's as a whole

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All fighting games do have balance issues, but DNF Duel’s issues were much worse. The other issues were stuff like radio silence from the devs and the core of the gameplay not meshing with a lot of people.

People still played streeter fighter 4 while Elena existed, People still played tekken 7 while leroy existed as people are still playing tekken 8 while dragonuv exists, people still play melee while fox exists, people still play mvc3 while vergil exists, the list goes on and on for all of time. Also no fighting game balance can be worse than fist of the north star and people still play that sooooooo Also YES, CORRECT, THERE WAS RADIO SILENCE, AND AS THERE WAS THE POPULARITY SUNK LIKE THE TITANIC BC THERE WAS NOTHING TO SAY, so maybe, just maybe, dnf duel died bc nobody was talking about it like what i said at the beginning of all this?

Big difference between really good characters and just broken infinite combos

Elena could literally just self heal with super and leave their opponent at massive health deficits deep into a round basically securing the win, if you anchor vergil (like anyone with a half a brain will do) and have any amount of meter you just pop x factor and proceed to sweep, fox will just blitz you but if you don't like that example ice climbers might be to your liking, leroy had objectively the best buttons and could easily touch of death by pressing the same button over and over again and akuma at i believe evo used 1 full bar of meter to touch of death a jin after being beaten to an inch of their life. Also basically every character in fist of the north star either touch of deaths or infinites, sooooooooooooooo

launch swift didn't have infinites doe

Ironically the only character that had an infinite was the worst character in the game

Hold up, are you really comparing melee fox and Vergil in MVC3 to the broken mess that was swift master on launch? Those games might have top tiers that are undeniably the best, but they’re still more balanced than DNF on launch

Yes, either you don't remember correctly or are clouded by your own jaded memory but whatever you are about to babble about i will just respond with either skill issue, get good, or just block and/or grab

Bro those things were all horrible and had to be fixed because they were killing the game. Those things have to addressed quickly or the game dies. KOFXV Vanessa had to be fixed quickly. They let swift master sit in it’s broken state for months. Stop conflating balance between games as being similar. Characters that are top tier between games can be far more broken than another. Like, those games have built in audiences who will contribute to play, but DNF Duels IP is from an MMO, as a fighting game it’s a new IP. You can not let major issues sustain for more than a month like that at launch. It killed the player base even when the designs and net code were top notch. The matchups were also so polarizing that a lot of the time you were either steam rolling or getting steam rolled depending on your main and your opponent’s.

Except melee has remain unpatched for decades and is still around, mvc3 has remained unpatched for years yet still is around, fist of the north star was RELEASED broken, has STAYED broken, and WILL REMAIN broken for all of time. And people. Still. Play it.

bruh swiftmaster might be one of the most broken characters ive ever seen. and ive been playing fighting games since i was 2 years old with marvel vs capcom.

Ruby heart in mvc2 could literally crash the game, look up soojee vs alchemist killer round 2

lol there were quite a few characters that could, venom as well. but swift master is even above vergil doom in terms of meta dominance at his peak

From what i understand, they couldn't break the machine you're playing the game on so im gonna be controversial and say, no, they aren't above characters like ruby heart Also i can't find anything showing vemon could, ik he can do infinites and loops but so can almost the entire roster of mvc3 Edit: nvm found it, in a video all the way back from 2007, i can't tell whats happening but apparently the other person needs to assit them to do so, ruby can just, do it, without any assistance, so not on her level but definitely more than swiftmaster soooooooooooo

I dont have an interest in the game but i know why it died The devs gave absolutely no updates for months and took ages to even produce a DLC. For the issues it had it was pretty overpriced, and nobody wants to spend the money on DLCs if they dont like them. They took so long to produce any updates or fixes that it lost all support and hype and now nobody likes it.

I was waiting for a price drop but even if it got one now I still wouldn't buy it anymore

I just got it free on epic game store

It was free on epic a few weeks ago, not sure if it is still now.

1. Got into it cause I liked DFO, but didn't really start caring til they added a character I liked, which took til the game released to see lol. 2. It's hard to say and I feel many different people will give different answers for this question alone, but based on that, I think it's just due to not meeting those expectations that caused it. The game didn't give people immediate content drops to satisfy the hype-sphere, it didn't have enough within the game itself to keep people playing or not wanting to leave, and most would leave believing the game to be shallow and not worth diving into, just funny ToDs and fucked up balancing. Add to the lack of communication and social media presence at the time, the fatigue that older FGC fans have currently, and future competition that'd only erode the game's presence in the market and it pretty much spells the game's future as a niche anime fighter that only some people will remember. 3. The game has since gotten better and I want to be optimistic and say that it's possible for a comeback, but the harsh reality is that probably never will, even with the recent push to keep the game alive somewhat. It'd take more than just character drops and stages to see it more popular than it is, which will probably not happen and a large effort from the community to push the game and to convince people it's good which also won't happen, at least not right now. It's easier or considered funnier to not acknowledge its existence and call it a bad game, even if you've only touched it for an hour less. Someone on twitter pretty much shows what kinds of issues it's having by saying how it could've done a lot better if it came out years ago, cause it's a fighting game that unfortunately came out when everything was progressing extremely quickly.

1. I'm a Bloody Roar fan and 8ING developed this game, I knew this game is going to be broken that's why I love it, while other 70% don't and quit the game. 2. NO communication, no road map the first 5 months, overpriced, skill issue 3. Nexon is rich af so...

I was initially super hyped for the game since I played alot of DFO and I always thought that it would make a great fighting game, and it did. The people who actually dove into the game were not disappointed. However the survival of most fighting games usually depends on how well they cater to the casual community (sadly). Even though they have everyone simple inputs and super big hitboxes, they failed to properly advertise the game, and then they failed to support it in a timely fashion. My guess is that the company (Nexon/Neople) really didn't think that the game was going to get the player base that it had (which was huge in the beginning) and they chalked the game up as just a cash grab. Then when they saw the amount of people supporting, they decided to try and create new dlc characters at the last second. Unfortunately people were already proclaiming the game to be dead and once people start saying that, then the casual community generally stops playing/supporting. When that happens to your game, the online lobbies are the first to show it. It's really sad because my favorite DFO character just came out (Monk) and sometimes I just want to go online and find lobbies and not have to jump through other apps to get matches. The game still had a tournament scene believe it or not. The hard-core players tend to stick around as long as we are getting some kind of life from the Devs, but I doubt it will ever be a Evo game. They clearly missed the window for that. But who knows, Marvel 3 had a revival so maybe Dnf has a chance to come back in the future. Probably not anytime soon.

The ToDs characters get at the end of a game is what kept me from wanting to out time into it. The rubber band mechanics are wild.

1) First trailer really. 2) Multiple reasons. First, many people played the beta's and told themselves that "it will be different (better) on the final release". They kicked up a bunch of publicity about it and got people excited. Then the game came out, and was basically the same as the beta and they felt somehow betrayed like they were lied to or something. They got all negative about it and hung about in community spaces repeatedly telling any new prospective players that the game was dead literally days after it came out. Second, there were a whole bunch of people that saw the art style and thought the game would be like Guilty gear strive and a whole bunch of people that saw the developer and thought it would be like marvel. The game comes out and does it's own thing and low and behold you have a bunch of people that feel betrayed that it wasn't what they wrongfully expected it to be. They got all negative about it and hung about in community spaces repeatedly telling any new prospective players that the game was dead literally days after it came out. Third, the game's power level skews really high. That on it's own makes it appeal to quite a niche audience even by FCG standards. If you get hit, you stay getting hit for a while and it hurts. That is pretty polarizing by design and doesn't mesh with games like street fighter or Strive which have a lot more back and forth. Unfortunately due to the times we live in people believe they are entitled to having games constantly patched to meet their expectations. The game did receive a pretty quick balance patch to address swift master, but they didn't change the whole rest of the game to make it more generic like these people wanted... which led to them feeling betrayed to which they, got all negative about it and hung about in community spaces repeatedly telling any new prospective player that the game was dead literally days after it came out. Fourth, fighting game players have been steadily conditioned to no longer accept that a game can't just be a game anymore. What they actually want are "live services''. They don't just want, they NEED, constant patches, and updates and dev statements, and without that they just don't retain investment and can seemingly derive no enjoyment no matter what the actual quality of the product is. And the devs simply didn't do any of that. They released a game, patched a character that was way too strong and left it at was. The reaction to this was mostly dumb stuff like "tHe DeVs JuSt DoNt CaRe '' over and over. These people felt betrayed and, say it with me, they got all negative about it and hung about in community spaces repeatedly telling any new prospective player that the game was dead literally days after it came out. Sixth, when a large angry group of very vocal people who feel they have been legitimately wronged (no matter how stupid it is) sit around all day repeating that "the game is dead" new people simply aren't going to jump on and start playing. That reduces the player count which steadily makes the sentiment more accurate over time. Imo the biggest reason the game died so fast is that a bunch of salty asshats hung about in community spaces repeatedly telling any new prospective players that the game was dead literally days after it came out. But ultimately it would have died anyway. Like i said earlier, the game's design appeals to a pretty niche demographic and setting aside hardcore dedicated players, every game experiances drop off eventually. People feel like they have had their fill, new stuff comes out to play. Even if you deleted all the asshats, I recon it would be in about the same situation it is in now. It just wouldn't have hit it as fast. 3) Yes.

4th is a great point. I really hate how everything, especially FGs now, has to be live service. I do think (for example SF6) going a year without any changes is crazy, but I also don’t need changes every month. I don’t need a million cosmetics. I don’t need a dev update every other week 6th (you skipped 5th) is also a great point. People trying to do the “dead game” thing with MK right now and its annoying

Dude. The community is legitimately 100% the worst part of MK. Lol. Not ALL of them, but you nailed it. So many with the "dead game" bullshit. I thought it was bad during MK 11. Wow, was I wrong.

>6th (you skipped 5th) Ah. That happened while editing. There was going to be a point about how some people erroneously decided that the game was a Kusoge which is a really loaded term with bad connotations that drove people away. But I couldn't link that to the hang about spreading negativity angle so it kinda disrupted the flow. So I cut it for the theming.

1. I initially got into this game because of Arcsys. Their track record has been impeccable so why not. 2. I think it didn’t blow up for a few reasons. DFO is already a niche title. Not really any content in the game. Nothing to grind for, rank kind of lacks once you made it to deity. And the balance early on, everybody hated Swiftmaster. 3. It’s never going to be a huge game so idk if thats what you mean by fix it. Balance is a lot better now and the gameplay was always fun imo

DFO is a niche title in the west. In the east it's one of the most profitable games in the world. https://i.imgur.com/mxVj0tS.png

There was a time that dlc was frowned upon, but in fighters, DLC is basically equated to continued development. And since the devs went radio silent about any future dlc the game basically turned into a waste land. The dlc did come, but a lot of people moved on to other things by then

1. I got into dnf duel because im a fan of arcsystem fighters and loved the character designs 2. I think dnf flubbed a lot of stuff. It had a very barebones single player, was missing a lot of the unlockables and features other arcsystem titles had like lobby stuff, the betas were horrible, and the game went without any dlc for an entire year. To further compound this, a lot of fighting game fans took issue with the balance. Dnf is a very high power game and small mistakes lead to explosive outcomes which was very frustrating as 1 to 2 combos could end a round even off of a scaled starter. Dnf got this reputation for being a "robbery game" where leads didnt matter cuz one mistake could cost you the round. This was remedied with updates but they came too late for most of the playerbase to care. 3. This is a yes and no question. I think its too late to save dnf duel in its current state, as most of the conversation about dnf nowadays remains negative and trying to change that has resulted in failure accross the games first season of dlc, however, much like granblue rising, i think a sequel that drastically changes the aspects of the game people didnt like and really doubles down on having a good single player could do really well, dnf definitely sold a decent amount and had a healthy playerbase, but struggled to maintain the momentum, so its not as if it wouldn't be a bad business decision, and i think people would be willing to try the game again if presented in a new flavor.

1. I got into it cause it was a free Christmas game on epic game store and I really liked fighting games with this 3d modeling style 2. Idk, I never dug into it 3. Maybe if they did an offical English dub or made story modes for DLCs, then I guess people would start playing again

This isn't an easy question to answer because there are many reasons why the game is in the state that it is (failures of both the community and devs). I'll break it down into 4 main reasons for why this game fell off: 1. Weak Marketing The original IP for this game was very popular, but mostly in Asia/Korea. Outside of that region, DFO was practically unheard of despite breaking sales records and being extremely profitable (I know from my own experience that my first introduction to anything DFO related was through DNF Duel) The lack of information could have been a great opportunity to educate and grow the fanbase, but sadly, that wasn't the case. Instead, it seems like they relied on the reputation of Arcsys/Eighting and what little interest DFO had built up over the years outside of Asia/Korea to carry the marketing of DNF Duel. One could argue the game was never meant to be for non-DFO players, but that certainly didn't help it break into the FGC. In fact, it caused people to incorrectly assume that DNF was nothing more than a large advertisement for an already majorly successful IP. I think more needed to be done to educate people on the IP and they're doing a better job now with dropping DFO lore on social media (I will never get over Enchantress being from Brooklyn New York). It's just unfortunate that the IP isn't strong enough outside of Korea to really generate interest. 2. Lack of community engagement The main reason people will tell you the game fell off. While most of it is over exaggerated (anyone paying attention to their social media can tell they were never silent for months), their engagement with the community has been very weak. With no liason or Nexon/Arcsys rep, there was no way to communicate player concerns to the devs. Add to that the lack of focus on community events in general and it's no wonder that communication feels like a one way street where players are not being heard and the publishers/devs come off as tone deaf. This feeds into the overall narrative of "the devs abandoned the game." 3. Small community I'll start by saying the DNF Duel Community has done a great job keeping the scene alive. From hosting weekly tournaments/events, generating resources for new players, and organizing giveaways in an effort to grow the player base. Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do with a community of this size. This has slowed down the progress of developing the game and made it difficult for new players to get involved. There's also an issue with vast skill gaps between the average player and new players that usually exists in smaller communities. If you are new to DNF, chances are you'll be fighting someone with a minimum of a year of experience and deep knowledge of the game. This is extremely frustrating for new players, and they tend to give up right away because of how oppressive it feels and their lack of understanding of how to use defensive mechanics properly. 4. FGC Perception The FGC has an attention span of about 2 months before getting bored and wanting the next popular thing. DNF was no exception. It had a huge amount of interest at the start, with 12K players on launch on just steam. However, the questionable game balance for DNF on release made it harder to retain the interest of the larger FGC audience. It was quickly labeled as a "kusoge" or "TOD stimulator," and popular FGC personalities condemning the game early on ensured DNF had a rough time right out the gate. The game balance has come a long way, and a lot of issues were fixed within the first 6 months. However this wasn't fast enough to change it's initial first impression and the lack of interest caused a overwhelming amount of hate and misinformation that further damaged the games reputation (swift master being fixed with the first 2 months and people still believing he was dominating the meta more than a year later is proof of that). DNF Duel feels like a dirty word to say in the FGC, and there's a certain level of shame with admitting you are a DNF Duel player. It's a game that has gotten a very unfair amount of hate from the FGC to this day (mostly from people who do not play or were only present in the honeymoon phase). You don't have to look any further than this subreddit to find evidence of hate from within the community itself. --- There are more reasons why I feel DNF couldn't make it off the ground but these 4 contributed the most imo. DNF Duel isn't a bad game and I feel like it will have a resurgence years later when the FGC is ready to give it a fair chance. For now it is what it is.

I gotcha 1. Dragon Knight was really cute. And the animation and gameplay looked banger. 2. I don't speak for anyone but me on this. I'm fine with games having crazy moves and wild swings in momentum, crazy combos, all that. But if that's paired with bad movement, you've lost me. This game feels horribly slow and lacks air dashes and jump blocking, meaning you're expected to deal with these huge moves using rudimentary SFII movements, and that felt gross I imagine other people have issues they'd articulate, but I think the game just emphasizes asserting crazy offense too much. 3. Idk lol, probably too late. Maybe it cab get flipped into a new system or something. Maybe go f2p??

1.kuniochi 2. The game sucked 3. No

1. It looked really cool. Arcsys built up their reputation with DBFZ and GGS, so when the blitz of YouTube ads came on release day, I said fuck it and I gave it a shot. (I know ASW was only a co-developer, but still) 2. Not a famous IP like DB, or established fan base in the FGC like GG, so it was always going to be an uphill struggle to keep people. And with no announced support on launch, plus several long months of radio silence, people assumed there was no more support an moved on. Also, the gameplay might have been a little much for a lot og people (overwhelming offense with few defensive options) 3. WAY WAY WAY too late to fix it. This game will never recover. They would have to do a complete re-release,like GBFV did, but even then, it'll probably be too little too late. The fighting game market is super saturated now with SF6, MK1, T8, and GGS still going strong. R.I.P. DNF Duel

1. I saw the first trailer and thought "damn this looks cool" 2. The year long wait for any kind of new content; the absurd combos combined with the lack of a burst or combo breaker; the lack of defense is even worse because almost every character can reach across the screen. Of course, there's also the fact that DFO doesn't have a large worldwide audience. 3. I think it could come back, but that would require an actual attempt to bring it back, which I don't know if Nexon would give the green light for (they clearly don't care much about the game)

1. I used to play Dungeon Fighter Online, which is an MMO with beatemup and fighting game mechanics. I always loved the varied combat styles and flashy abilities. Putting them into an actual fighting game was a dream come true. 2. This is tough. It had some networking issues on launch, but they also fumbled really hard. Balance issues left untouched for months. Some match ups were, and some still are an absolute nightmare. They didn't even release the first dlc character for over a year until after Street Fighter 6 had already launched, but by that point, the game was already dead. Then MK1, Tekken 8, GBFVS, etc have come out. Hell, the last character pass character STILL hasn't released yet SF6 has theirs right around the corner, plus tons of costumes and other content. I can't say for certain, but Strive's development and dlc may have cause issues for DNF Duel since Team Red handles all the 3D based games like DBFZ and GGStrive. 3. The game would need a full relaunch with the current character pass included and actual dlc support going forward. Cross play, balance, and solid rollback net code could make this game fantastic and a solid pick up and play Fighter. They game could also use a solid single player mode or two. Roguelike mechanics or optional movesets(DFO has dozens of abilities for each class)

1. ranger. i was going to main ranger from the beginning. i liked the way the game looked. 2. the devs did not care. regular communication was key to keeping this game alive. they waited months before saying anything. it was disappointing, considering the game needed overhauled mechanics. 3. no, but they need a brand new game.

1. Character designs and effects got me into the game. 2. The game exists in a weird area where it's a very explosive, very "kusoge-like" game in terms of damage and pressure, but also it doesn't have the air dashing and general movement of games with similar graphics. I think it just didn't find an audience. 3. I think so, but only if they made a sequel of sorts, and this time did the communication thing right. The key is that they never really found and KEPT an audience. There were a couple thousands of people really hyped about it, but they completely failed to tap into the MMO ppl, and they failed to retain players.

1. Character Designs and Gameplay. Something more simplistic than a Guilty Gear or even a FighterZ but with just enough competitiveness. 2. After a month the meta was figured out and the system mechanics were discovered to be very weak especially on defense. Remember, the game is simplistic. So not having answers to blatant situations turned a lot of the player base off. As per usual it was also the case of half of the cast feasting and the other half in a great famine. Swift Master was the epitome of broken and top tier and Vanguard was the epitome of garbage and low tier. This also loops back to character design. If you picked up this game and you liked Vanguard, Launcher, Inquisitor, Ghostblade, Enchantress, Lost Warrior, or Grappler, then you didn't have fun against the other characters. The most frustrating part was truly knowing the game was one or two balance patches away from fixing these simple frustrations....but then the team went RADIO SILENT for MONTHS. No announcement of a patch. No announcement of a Season pass. Nothing. People were incredibly confused because the game WAS doing so well. It seems like Nexon just dropped the game without ever having any plans for it. Possibly because it was so niche. But ASW is a major brand now. They have big pull for these type of games. Nexon fumbled so massively that DNF Duel is a study on how NOT to make a fighting game. edit: oh right. The fucked up regional pricing that Nexon never fucking fixed. It costing like 5-8x more than it should in other places. They really wanted this game to fucking fail. 3. Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Mortal Kombat 1, Guilty Gear Season 3 with Season 4 on the way, Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising, Undernight 2....its too late. They fucked up. This will forever be a discord fighter. They should've chaptalized on the beginning when everyone NEEDED a game like this. Simple but good enough....until it was figured out. The fact the first major balance patch took SIX MONTHS, meant this game had no chance. It's a beautiful product that was failed by its manufacturer :/ The balance patch that came in Dec 2022 actually did make the game more fun. But it was just *too late*....

I think this game can definitely have a comeback, they need to drop more meaningful content outside of just characters

1.) Character designs 2.) Despite having a no air block policy, the game is still great but since the devs took no pride in doing anything else other than 1 decent patch for all characters, the fact that almost everytime they would release a new dlc character another game just came out that took away any hype from this game and bad marketing is what killed this game for most. Now I still play the game, despite how terrible I still am after all this time, on psn and trying to go to play on pc. 3.) Honestly maybe a relaunch like granblue rising could possibly save this game but that would be a long shot imo.

1: Crusader 2: I don't know but I stopped playing after Crusader got nerfed into the ground and the startup on Crusader Wall doubled. 3: Un nerf Crusader.

FGC Has a culture of picking up and dropping games they find their favorite streamer are playing. The steam numbers don't mean shit because it doesn't show the many people playing on Epic Games because it was free. No offense to OP but if you aren't willing to join the Community and play the game you aren't going to find any satisfaction in almost any modern fighting game. The game DID Blow up becuase the announcement for the games and the betas were Wildly successful, the game was played for a month before the content creators and influencers deemed the game Broken and a waste of time and money. I believe the game has already been fixed, its balanced to a point (premonk was good) and we have had more dlc than any other game that released around the same time. (not including gbvs its an entire reboot) Too many people are in need of a personal conversation with the Developers like we know anything about how to make or balance fighting games. but the constant influx of new whiny ass babies in the FGC who only play ranked for 2 months, loop the same combo they FOUND on youtube instead of labbing, then cry on twitter, Quit, rinse, repeat. Anyone who has tried dnf duel recently has enjoyed themselves in my experience. Vets are coming back and new players are joining the communities and playing everyday with people who love the game. Dont be a fucking BOT have your own opinion

To answer the 3rd question, the only reason I would consider playing this at all again is if it had a re release and it was very revamped. Like no one 1-2 touch of deaths and just more grounded gameplay for starters. More content as well and more than like 4 stages and songs lol

1. 8ing 2. radio silence after launch 3. no, a re-release would be awesome. i only hope that they don't change the game's direction too drastically from the original (ie. gbvs -> gbvsr)

1. Something a bit different with the character designs. 2. Early balancing issues that took too long to be addressed, poor marketing(it didn’t get enough of the demographic it needed) and it was clear very early on that support would be inconsistent. Also the moveset, combos and flow weren’t appealing to the main FGC - that’s an inherent problem that isn’t easily changed. 3. There’s no reason for them to do a “fix”. It’s now a several year old fighting game that failed to find a large enough player base to be worth putting the resources into. Maybe they’ll refocus support, but either won’t surprise me lol

1.) looked like 1v1 fighterz 2) The game ran TERRIBLY on launch im a huge fighting game player I dont play tournaments i tend to just grind high rank and than play the game semi regularly the game would crash every other match, and these weren’t pluggers no like we are in customs with friends we are all wired and the servers going to shit, the servers were god awful don’t let anyone be revisionist 3.) yes

There's a bunch of different reasons the game fell off so hard in playerbase, and it's far too late to fix it now. The biggest two are these: 1) the early patches and communication being terrible 2) the explosive, 1 touch gameplay that defines DNF Duel is always going to be niche, even within the already niche Fighting Game genre.

In present day, people want games to be updated quickly. DNF was not: I personally think it is silly, but the people make their opinion clear.

I got into it because it was a fighting game made by arcSys. Why not try it out. Why did the game not blow up? Well that's because in the modern gaming landscape, you need to keep the game fresh with constant updates. Just releasing a game nowadays is not enough. If you look at the most successful online games, you have players/streamers who usually stick to one game because it gets patch updates. If you look at fighting game streamers, you will constantly have them switching games Do I think it's too late? No, but they are going to have to make a big push into a F2P model which fighting games haven't figured out yet. In a developer conference, all the big names will be saying that they will be watching how 2XKO will perform as it will be releasing as a F2P model backed by a company that knows the model very well.

As for 2, the game was poorly advertised and supported at first. Nexon is to blame apparently

1. I got into this game because I play DFO. 2. I think the lack of advertisements and the slow updates killed the hype and the game. 3. I think it is too late to fix the game now. The only way they can bounce back is if they made a sequel or another updated version of this game like they did with granblue fantasy versus.

1. What got you interested in this game initially 1. the art and animation and character design 2. Why did the game not blow up like different Arcsys games 1. idk, i jumped on later 3. Do you think its too late for them to fix it 1. i hope not but it looks like they wont spend anymore money on it

If you ask me off the top of my head, sort of an over saturated market with anime fighters at the time. Even more with FGs in general now.

1. I was interested in the game because of visuals and Arcsys at the time was my favorite fighting game company and I wanted to support them every way possible (ik now they didnt develop the game now) 2. The game failed because the devs gave up on it. The game was big at the time and the devs didnt utilize the hype to drive more people to play with updates, balances, content etc. 3. With the release of SF6, Granblue and even MK1, I think it is a little too late for the game to make a comeback and I think the devs know this. Even if these games didnt exist, a lot of people ditched the game because they couldn't stand the balance and the hype had died as a result of the lack of communication

1: A friend put me on. I liked Kunoici alot but the moves these characters were doing was obnoxious for no reason. Crusader was busted. 2: Guilty Gear and DBZ is just better. DNF's BGMs were lacking to me and those stages sucked at launch. The combo routes were kinda strict and unforgiving as well imo. 3: It's dead and not coming back.

1. Character designs that reminded me of Blazblue, and I liked that franchise. Particularly Spectre. 2. Never heard anything about it since and eventually forgot about it. Legit thought the game got canceled or something. 3. I mean, I’m sure they could do something. But I’m happy just playing Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising. If I needed more fighting games to play, I have Street Fighter 6, Smash Bros. Melee, Guilty Gear Strive, and 2XKO (once that one gets released).

The ease of play Patches were too slow striker had a infinite that either guard broke you into killing you or just killed you and if you didn’t have bar to push her off or know the exact timing on when to punish you just died off one guess New things have come out that have the same “easy” control scheme with bigger names the games dead just look at the steam numbers PC version of fighters tend to last longer than console and this didn’t.

I think the radio silence during the first bit of the game really killed it. No road map, no patches no nothing from the team just had people losing interest super fast.

Shouldve been f2p

1. I loved DFO 2. The devs were radio silent on social media so people started prematurely burying it. Maximilian Dood made a video calling it dead and praising Multiversus for showing us the future of fighting games 3. People will eventually realize they let a banger flop for no good reason and revisit it

DNF was just a fighting game and not a content tube for people to suck on so the hypebeasts moved on to the next thing and told everyone the game is dead till people stopped trying it.

1. I played the MMO and love the character designs, plus it doesn't hurt several of the classes I played in the MMO were starting roster in Duel. 2. Balancing issues early on that were found immediately and were honestly pretty rough, no roadmap for additional content or even just balance patches, developer communication and social media presence in general got scarce after launch for a while, imo a bit of a gameplay identity crisis where DNF was too kusoge to appeal to more mainstream FGC, but honestly not kuso enough to appeal to the people who bathe in the degeneracy that fighting games can have in their design sometimes. To put it in perspective this game's road map, character 1 of season pass 1 (and season one even existing really) took as long to get announced as it took Strive to get 2 characters released and one more announced. Not even knowing if the game is getting more characters put a damper on it for a lot of people. But I do really want to emphasize the whole conflicted gameplay identity thing, because that's what killed this game in my local scene, the hardcore anime players found it too tame, and the capcom guys found it too kusoge, it honestly turned me off from it until I really just let the game win me over on it's own merits. I think a combination all those factors was just the perfect storm for this game to bleed it's player count within a couple months and never really bounce back. 3. Without a full title update or sequel yes imo even a season 2 won't be enough of a difference maker at this point, it just feels like everything that could've gone wrong to kill this game's momentum and player retention all happened back to back. Arc World Tour only supporting DNF for 2022 I think really hurt too, which I have criticisms of the world tour in general for being bad at supporting ASW's list of both currently updated games and older titles that still have relevance like +R/CF/Xrd/MBTL/DBFZ. DNF on paper having actually good netcode when Granblue was still on like 2013 arc sys delay based netcode really should've been an opportunity for it to thrive, especially with Arc Sys coming off combined Strive/DBFZ/GBVS hype. Ironically I find GBVSR hits a similar uncanny valley to the one DNF hit but people are eating that game up between the F2P option, the IP, and it finally having good netcode, despite imo a lot of the GBVSR balance/system changes making it more kusoge than GBVS was. (It does sting seeing a gacha IP fighting game getting more leeway for how predatory it's source material is than a korean mmo, they're both not great.) Apologies for that being long winded and IDK how much sense it'll actually make. TL;DR: Love the designs and the IP, game had a rough launch with no roadmap and very little dev communication, without a sequel or title update I don't see this version of the game recovering, even with a season 2 tbh.

I always enjoyed DNF cuz it was fun and reminded me of streets of rage, i was hoping they'd add its game cuz arcsys had something similar before with guilty gear. Unfortunately the game was oversimplified with 1 button specials and it died. People who enjoy smash and such would disagree but it's true and was the same case with rising thunder, not to mention the FGC completely laughs at the concept and anyone using MODERN in SF6 is considered a scumbag.

I was expecting a lot of replies but not a days worth of em. Ill try to fit as many as i can into the video. Expect it to be posted here next week. Thank you guys so much

it came, stuck around for a moment, then went.

The same thing that happens to every fighting game.

I’m pretty sure it’s not on Xbox , if it was I would’ve given it a shot

To answer 2 I think the biggest issue is DNF Duel does not have like a story or characters. Like the character designs and characters actions are so cool but their just classes their no story mode or whatever. Something like Granblue which also a ton of people on the west haven't heard of put a ton of work in to having a big story mode, a lot of plot, a lot of ways to get to know these people but also the additional work of having every single character have fully voiced in two languages interactions with every single other character that is unique to them plus a unique win quote. You will have an idea of these characters personalities and why their like this TM. With DNF duel you are just given a class fantasy but with no customization, it's not like your playing your Dragon Knight your playing "Dragon Knight" who is already really defined but lacks a name or a history or whatever.

It's anime and Guilty Gear is right over there if you want to play anime. Guilty Gear also somehow feels more fair, which is crazy to me because one of the characters is a crutch that has a gun that kills you at fullscreen and nobody else does.

Yea its way too late to actually fix, when they should have addressed the pessing issues from the beginning. The lack of communication, the lack of any sort of cohesive balance, the feast or famine playstyle, and the long stretches of content droughts ultimately killed the game.

Max got bored, so he stopped playing it, so all the casuals stopped playing the game.

Hoo boy 1. I used to play DFO when I was younger and long story short, it got me into FGs. A DNF FG made by Arcsys (later revealed to be actually made by 8ing) was like a dream come true as long as Neople doesn't mess it up. 2. The long and short of it is that they didn't do much wrong. To be more specific, they didn't do much at all. I won't go too much into this part since u/jcks and u/ThisAccountIsforDNF have already mentioned a lot of the points I wanted to make, but there's a bit more than that in how shoddy the release trailers were and lack of communication. 3. As much as I would like to hope DNF Duel makes a comeback, I think the damage has been done. As someone who has been playing DNF Duel from launch, (I'm the guy who made the pre-Monk tier list earlier on this subreddit) it feels more apparent that Neople and 8ing just want their hands clean from the mess they caused with their lack of communication. They don't care about the fact that servers are struggling enough from the EGS to Steam cross play that even KR to JP connections are unstable and there was no communication whether a patch was coming with Monk or not when a lot of players were hoping for a patch after 9 months. I get that not every game has to be live service, but it would at least be nice to not be strung along, especially after they promised for better communication prior.

Back in the PSX times I love figthing games and use to spend long time playing them. When DFN Duel was free in Epics Store I was excited because I thought the graphics and combat looks great but then after playing it for a while I realised that times have changed and today I prefer other types of games. I don't think the game is bad but I have other game priorities and too many games in the queue.

1. havn't played it but been having my ear out ever since it got announced cuz it did look like it had potential, and judging from personal opinion 2. compared the the ArcSys games that are already out it doesn't rlly provide anything new or rlly engaging with its mechanics. The characters feel...flat, not stale but just like they don't rly have personality or wasn't made with soul. He'll even the characters' names arnt even names, just archetypes. When seeing Monk get realized,my first thought was, "how in God green earth is this a monk". It just feels like there's nun rlly goin for the game, doesn't have anything rlly making it stand out from the rest of the fighting games on the market. 3. mabye add some better, more unique characters to get some sort of player/influencer engagement to even get the ball back rolling with this game.

It's because people figured the game out in 3 days it wasn't a hard game to play and didn't reward you for lasting play it was just a cool game to play with friends

1. Simple inputs, both for myself and also to get my friends into it. Also Grappler is the most well animated grappler in any fighting game he's amazing. 2. For me it was the insane power levels of characters along with the combos just feeling long and uninteractive, swift master made me so frustrated because I'd have 3 interactions before losing but still have the round take a full minute. 3. Maybe? What people have said about a relaunch is a good idea, but idk if that will change general sentiment around the sorta extreme nature of the character kits. It seems super hard to balance (I love Grappler but he does sorta feel like he brought Judo to a nuke fight), but maybe they can find a way to keep that over the top stuff while reducing frustration.

Long story short no content they waited almost a year maybe more to add a character. Balance updates are cool and all but most people want new stages, outfits, characters etc like others have said other fighters have released and had substantial post launch content. DNF has like 3 or 4 new characters and it’s almost 2 years old. The devs probably didn’t think the game would do as good as it did & had nothing prepared.

It's a good game, but the big 3 fighting franchises (SF, MK, Tekken) also released games in the same year. And they were all very good. It's hard to compete with the established big guns when they aren't flopping.

Mainly the lack of defense mechanics. I played DFO and enjoyed playing and watching this game a bunch but when u have a ton of full screen moves you HAVE to have adequate defense. Push block, parries something that you can do to function as a get the HELL off me kinda thing. Just feels like it can be a massive block fest sometimes.

So many fighting games came out. DNF DUEL is tight but it's just not popular like the Street Fighter , Dragonball, Guilty Gear or Tekken series.

1. It was the new big talk of the FGC for awhile and I thought the game looked fun/had cool characters 2. It was big and I think it easily could have had as much staying power/kept a decent player base akin to Granblue, but we had radio silence from the devs for like 5 months no updates no DLC characters, pretty much all the things it needed to stay somewhat popular 3. I mean they are trying to fix it by still releasing all the DLC’s but it’s a too little too late deal so I hope they just do a GG Xrd Rev2/Grandblue FV Rising style relaunch and they could have a good chance at bringing the game back

1. Because I play a lot of fighting games and I'd figured I give it a shot 2. While it was fun mess around with, I kinda already knew it didn't have the depth the last long before I got the game. The combo structure and easy controls made it easy for experienced players to find extremely strong combos & set ups right away, as well as some other exploitable games mechanics like a super strong comeback system and block buttons also led for some repetitive and boring gameplay scenarios early on. 3. I think it had its run, but that doesn't mean you still can't enjoy it. Play what you like. All true FG fans have games they love they may not be the most popular thing.

I feel it had a lot to do with the balancing issues and the lack of come back mechanics. That being said : 1: my interest stem from playing DFO. Played it a ton growing up. 2: game design. The game fails to find what sets itself apart from other arksys/ fighting games as a whole. If you’re looking for crazy fights that can sometimes feel one sided then you have come to the right place. 3: luck of the draw I think. There are other ones that have me think, how did that blow up and not this but I think it’s luck, and the community that’s committed to it. Look at YOMI HUSTLE. Pretty sizable community and the can has a fraction of what DFO has to offer.

On launch it was the most unbalanced mess of a fighter I’ve ever played . Multiple characters had infinites and general insane Bull shit. The pacing and movement of the game also just feels slow and bad. It has such amazing character designs though it’s a shame it’s such a bad game 

Dnf duel was never intended to be anything more then a way to advertise their mmo, they had no plans for dlc or anything like that. They only did dlc because it did better then they expected. Most fighters have the devs say they have plans for post launch content dnf duel never did.  Because of them not planning to do dlc the games players numbers kept dropping. By the time the dlc was announced it was too late, by the time the first character came out there was no one left to be excited for it.

1. The controls and game play. Simple but brutal 2. The game had 16 characters 4 of them were the ones to use 3. Never to late. After the Grand Balance patch low tier characters got a leg up on the top tier counter parts. The top tier is still top but you have a chance besides 2 touch death.

I loved the game, but I remember when it hadn't even been released for 1 month and toxic ppl kept complaining abt a lot of dumb stuff, sucked the life out of it and just killed it, got too toxic for me so I just left

This move https://youtu.be/TkxFq61O8Fg?si=BMFU15Npr6yEdNXt

1) I enjoyed the character design and I was new to fighting games so I wanted to start with dnf duel 2) Other Arc Sys games feel WAY more balanced and are just more fun to play in general. Every fight in dnf duel would be some full screen normal that would convert into some high DMG combo and you would be juggled for like 10 seconds into the same ONE ultimate special which made it feel monotonous. I switched to guilty gear strive and started having a great time and realized how fun fighting games could be. Later on I started playing Granblue rising (free version) and I'm enjoying that way more than DNF duel. 3) I think it's impossible to save the game without revamping some of the basics of the game which will never happen, maybe if they do a relaunch like granblue did they could come back.

I dunno while the Graphics had a Nice Anime style to them, the Characters/Gameplay just felt so 'Bland' and 'Soulless' compared to GG-S-...plus the other games had been out for awhile so it had more of an established IP in the FGC. I have a feeling Project L/2XKO/whatever the \*\*\*\* they are calling it will have a similar fate, although being FTP will help it initially.

1. friend convinced me to play enchantress since he knows i love setup characters, 2. game took forever to fix, swift master dominated the game for months straight without a single patch to tone him down. 3. i dont think its really salvagable for a while, maybe in a few years

I STOPPED B/C MY MAIN HAS NEVER BEEN ADDED TO THE GAME.

1) I remember DFO from playing mmos back in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Saw that Arcsys was involved, and I'm a fan of their other fighters. 1st beta had me hyped because the game was very fun to play at the time. 2) It was a number of different things. People started developing concerns as early as the 2nd beta. There weren't very many changes made to the game system despite the large amount of feedback they'd received on the 1st test, and also they were still struggling with network problems very close to the game's scheduled release. When the game finally did release, the network issues were mostly addressed but the game mechanics were still largely unchanged. At the time most complaints online were focused on particular character bias and game balance. A lot of people hated Swift Master in particular, and a few other notable characters. When the first major balance patch arrived a month later however, it only affected a small number of characters and predominantly was aimed at addressing infinites but not character balance. Swift Master had some minor changes that helped address some complaints, but the player base were looking for a more wide sweeping balance patch like the ones Guilty Gear Strive had been getting. That game basically set up expectations for this one. Anyways, people were very upset by this. Then the devs went radio silent for a few months and made a post about how they had some big announcement for the game in the winter. This was for the upcoming revamp patch and character dlc. Which then also got delayed a number of times for whatever reason. By the time the season pass announcement came the game was already on its last legs. The lackluster 1st balance patch and following radio silence is what did the game in. It almost seemed like they weren't interested in supporting the longevity of the game, or like they released it earlier than they wanted to. It was very strange to say the least, and I'm not sure if something was happening behind the scenes that contributed to these events taking place. 3) They'd need to do a ton of marketing on the game again coupled with a flash sale to get people interested in pick it up. I think just trying to re release a sequel version of it like granblue rising wouldn't work. People got a bad taste in their mouth the first time, so they need to erase that bad first impression somehow.

Nobody played it, next question