Yes, I'm gonna go dedicate a thread to this. I warned Wazulu I would do this, so here it is. This thread is about dealing with the influx of 'casual'... I mean 'bad' players; or bad players defining themselves as casual. Whatever you like. People that have played LoL, DotA, CS:GO, etc. know exactly what I'm talking about and can exactly tell where THIS community is headed. If you wish to ignore the issue or wouldn't want to read any more of my gibberish, press backspace now. If that didn't do anything, there's also the back button.
Previous weekend, I/crew I was on required moderator interference twice, last weekend once. While 2 measurements isn't enough to spot a trend, I am worried and I feel we need to deal with the issue. One of my friends has said we should stand our ground firmly right now. He also argued that while this might stunt growth a little, it will end up being beneficial for the current community and for the new players in the long run. And I am inclined to agree. If you let people in that have no interest in playing the actual game, you're inevitably going to drop standards. And while hardcore communities tend to be small, keep in mind that Quakeworld, Quake3 and Street Fighter 2 are still being played, if dicking around was the standard in those games, noone would've stayed that long.
I however do not believe we need to go full hostile on anyone that is new or 'just doesn't care'. New players as it is now are subject to abuse from players in the game. It's not because I like to yell at people, it's not because my friends like to yell at people, it's because they set us off and test our patience. And yes, I have met noobs that did really well in the first game, and I commend them on it, but others... lets just say they don't like me anymore; and I'm not a captain that is burning moonshine and complaining that his engines are broken.
Lets analyze the situation from their perspective. One of the reasons is: they just don't care about you or the games they are ruining by simply joining as captain and readying up immediately with a 3 mortar squid. These players are the ones that piss everyone off, because when you try to correct them, they just laugh at you or just ignore you. While in Guns of Icarus there is ways around them(if not many) and it often happens that two of these idiots join side by side in the same team, causing them to endure serious losses and leaving midgame... these players are going to be setting the standard if we don't eliminate these from the playing field.
The other reason is: the noob games are filled with retards(again, by the definition of the word). This is something that is undeniable and IS a problem. The lowlevel games are there to provide new players with an accessible learning curve, not a fuckbox(visualization is at your own discretion!). And while I have had the luck of finding teams that did care and where I could learn from, if the trend keeps up, others won't. For many potentially dedicated players this can be a MAJOR turn off.
It's in my opinion imperative that we discriminate between both types of players and treat them separately with separate standards. One of these groups can end up being respected, or even the best, players in our community if we let them. The other group... we could just as well toss them out in my honest opinion. But since they paid for a product which they should be able to exploit, we should probably give them a way to still enjoy the product, but not bother us or the group that can succeed. Might they want to become proper players, they can follow the basic path and get there eventually.
So these are the three groups I separate and feel should be distinguished inside the game: the 'I play for fun' players, the new players and the experienced players. Giving these groups their own playing field gives each group a lot less stress which would mean the community would even become more friendly as a whole. The next issue is of course the movement of players. Players should be able to eventually move to the experienced players pool. I'm going to leave out the bad players pool for a bit. The new players pool will have players that learn slowly and players that learn quickly. It would be unfair to hamper fast learners because of the slow learners and so it would mean that they should have access to the experienced player pool fairly quickly. This is something I of course touched on before, new players that decide to enter the experienced pool will have to be approved by the experienced pool. When level 3 or maybe 4 is hit on a class, the player can always enter the experienced player pool and the experienced players don't have much to say about it. Yet if they are lower, they are going to have to rely on commendations from the experienced players to keep them in the experienced pool. The current way commendations are given, it means that players will have to jump through some serious hoops not to stay in the experienced pool and as long as it stays like that, the system will work fine.
Now, the other pool. Since there are no automated ways to determine if someone is a complete moron. I suppose a report system is in order. Since most of the problematic players are in the noob pool, the noob pool will have to report these players and flag them as 'bad'/'casual' players. If too many reports are triggered, these players will get a message notifying them that they are put in the 'casual' pool and that their leveling has STOPPED(3 years of experience in the 'casual' pool doesn't count). These players then have either the choice to accept it and continue to dick around in that pool like he has unimpeded or appeal the system after which a CA, CA Mod or Muse developer has to come in and judge the player's intentions. While the appeal is going, the player still has access to the regular pools until the decision has been made. The appeal can be made once a certain period, so if a player decides he wants to try the 'hardcore' pools, he gets judged and permitted/denied at that point.
The above system will make pubs accessible to ALL groups of players. It will smoothen the innate friction that the groups have and will also mean that the bufferzone that was put in place to help new players, actually helps new players.
Of course I am open to any suggestions there are. But mind you, coming with solutions tried in DotA, LoL or anything of the sort will most likely be ignored. Telling players to form private groups is the exact opposite of what I wish to achieve and bringing that to the table will also be ignored. They didn't work there and most likely will not work here.
