Concerning Player Retention and Realism

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There's some people here saying more realism is more fun, some saying less realism is more fun, and people talking about how these things relate to player retention. I'll try to chip in. And yeah, I usually end up writing long-winded posts. For those with less time and/or interest, there's a tl;dr in the end. And no, you most definitely don't need to quote the whole post or reply to all points if you want to comment!

Also, if you wish to argue with the tl;dr instead of the actual post, please feel free to. However, it can be a good idea to read the whole post before doing so if you have time.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ    This is Alarma, the OWB - Official Warning Butterfly. She is here to warn you about an incoming wall of text! Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

Foreword and why I am actually writing this much stuff

I believe one of the biggest questions Muse's staff has been trying to answer is exactly this one; why have there been problems with player retention, what steps and/or other incidents could have caused possible declines and/or increases, and what can we do to remedy the possible problems with player retention?

Now, bear with me here; I'm by no means a seasoned expert on this. However, I am currently majoring in relevant subject(s) (my major is possibly the least clearly defined at our university) - I've studied computer science, marketing, behavioral psychology, corporate and team level cooperation and business administration, for instance. I have also worked for 2 years at a gaming company, though my assignment was more with customer communication and team synergy (although claiming that the latter was an actual responsibility of mine may be stretching it) than product development. I've also played games since I was like 6, much like some others here.  As such, I may be able to provide some more food for thought. I am not trying to derail the thread, although a lot of this post doesn't directly concern realism but player retention. People have been talking about both up to this point, though.

People gaining and losing interest in any game may have also something to do with other gaming titles that have popped up. Are there games similar enough to GoIO that might have an effect on GoIO? To give an example, has Dota 2 caused a change in LoL player retetion, and if so, has the change been brief or consistent? Has the opposite happened? Were there patches that caused a surge from one game to another? Possibly, but investigating questions like takes a lot of time. Personally I haven't seen many games like GoIO, so it might be fair to treat it as more or less a niche.  Despite this, popular titles that pop up will have some gamers spending time on them instead of their old games, even if the games are very different. There have been some GoIO players i know playing a lot of Titanfall recently, for instance.

There are also obviously a lot of other things that can affect a game's "overall popularity", many of which have been discussed in this thread. Basically, even though suggesting possible causation between two different things can sometimes be reasonably accurate, one should be careful when making broad assumptions. And finally, I'm writing this post to give my thoughts on the issue, and in a best case scenario, talk through these posts to you, the others, and maybe even the devs about something that may not have been talked about too much as of late. No, not everyone will like reading a wall of text. That's why there's a tl;dr.

I know there's a lot of people on the internet nowadays that can't be bothered to read much more than a few sentences (and to be fair I have a feeling that there are even people who have skipped the post up to this point and will just scroll to the end after reading this), but I hope I can reach at least a few people regardless of that. I've done my best to keep the post coherent through formatting.

Some reasons why I think some people, especially new players, prefer other games to GoIO

Game features and the learning curve, new players vs vets. Has the lack of matchmaking been detrimental to the game in terms of player retention? In many other online games I've played, I've stood a bigger chance against experienced opponents. In games like Counter-Strike,I can pick up a weapon and one-shot an enemy regardless of his skill. I can get the money to buy a weapon like this in a few minutes, even if my team is losing. Counter-Strike only recently introduced matchmaking and in my eyes has done extremely well so far without it, mainly because of this. Also in DOTA 2, one well placed spell can be either practically or literally the end of an enemy hero, regardless of skill. Not so in Guns of Icarus. I started playing this game with a couple of friends, I'm the only one of the 5 who stayed as an active player. The others still like to play if we get the whole gang going, mainly because there is a very large gap between the expected or required and the actual amount of teamwork that takes place within "pick-up-crews", especially with low level players.

Basically, as a new player, I was essentially completely powerless against people who used teamwork, as I didn't know how the game mechanics worked yet, much less how to utilize our strengths together as a crew or even a team of ships. I could ask people how things work, but this would basically only work in game if there was a helpful player in my crew as I rarely had time to type in match chat, nor did I expect people to reply through it. Novice games balance things out as far as player experience goes, but as there are in my experience very, very rarely experienced people (CAs or teachers) in there, it's "the blind leading the blind" to quote NoWuffo, another forum user and a CA. People are sometimes eager to get into "real matches" partly because of this, partly because there are often very few novice matches around, partly because they want to play with "good people" for one reason or another, and partly because you cannot customize ship loadouts in novice matches.  There may be other factors, but I consider these the most important ones.

Remember that a lot of low level players, especially from non-english-speaking countries, are not only inexperienced with the game but may also have some trouble being efficient teamplayers if they don't understand the communication that takes place in the lobby or in game, or if they cannot get a grasp of basic game mechanics in a relatively short amount of time. Also, getting a grasp of more advanced game mechanics is all but impossible if you can't communicate in or read English. That being said, most people playing this game do speak English, and there are no localization of descriptions, quick voice commands, or even tutorials unlike in most MOBAs, at least not at this time. I hear a Russian translation is on its way, though.

When talking about low level players vs. experienced players and the lack of matchmaking, Thomas actually went into a lot of detail and argued thoroughly on why he thinks his test results and arguments for implementing matchmaking are relevant here, more power to him. On a side note, I stole some of the formatting since I thought it was good. Anyone who is willing to do his best to prove he has an idea or an argument that is not too far-fetched can be a big help in my eyes. I read through the thread, and was not overly surprised at the results, having been on the journey from a newbie to a relatively experienced GoIO player within a few months.

What about the community? Would it have been possible to retain more players with a different kind of community in place? We have the CA system, developers who actively take part in community events and talk to the community, and a lot of friendly people in the community. Do we have our arguments and "bad apples"? Most definitely. Are they vocal enough and sufficiently great in numbers to stain the community? In my opinion, not really. Also, a lot of the issues that cause arguments can be dealt with in a civil manner on the forums. I believe we are in a very good place when it comes to the community on average.

In relation to this, the current lobby system divides people in two. Some people want the games to start quicker, some enjoy the socialization that takes place in lobbies. Muse have likely done everything in their power to both keep the game relatively social and introduce mechanics that keep the game from "dying out" (i.e. matchmaking). How will it turn out? Will we gain or lose more players with future changes? What about the general friendliness or  Time will tell, but these are all issues that are thoroughly discussed not only by the devs but also by the community, also in this very thread.


Comparing teamwork, solo performance, and the learning curve of GoIO to MOBAs, a widely popular genre of games with matchmaking
 
To elaborate on the expected and actual teamwork, I will once again reference MOBAs, which is arguably one of the most wide-spread online gaming genres of our generation. For anyone who isn't familiar with these games or their history and wishes to read an article on it, try this (MOBA, DOTA, ARTS: A brief introduction to gaming's biggest, most impenetrable genre). Having played more MOBA matches than Guns of Icarus matches (some 2500-3000+ vs 1800), I'll try to compare them to a certain degree. Now, know that I've played 1500+ matches of both games/genres, and I know these games cannot be directly compared in many respects. However, as they both are games where you can either play individually or exercise teamwork, and one genre is wildly popular, it can be entertaining to think of the similarities vs. differences. So, as far as some general differences go;

• In a MOBA, a single player has a far bigger chance of making the game go one way or another, especially when talking about inexperienced players. Because of the so-called "snowballing" effect (getting a good start helps you do well later) new players can stumble across this and get a feeling of immense satisfaction as they see their team win more or less "thanks to him". Kills, deaths, and kill assists are all tracked and visible throughout the match.
  • (Unlike the performance chart in GoIO which you can see for a few seconds if you play through the whole match. The performance charts are on top of that individual, so you have no idea how well you did overall, no good way to compare yourself to others. Not to mention you don't get gunner performance reviews as an engineer or vice versa.)
• There is matchmaking in most MOBAs, which makes games start relatively quickly and without much hassle, and which does its best to put experienced people against other experienced people and vice versa. It is possible for the match making system to relatively quickly calibrate your perceived skill, so "natural talents" or other games' veterans don't go through hundreds of "noob-stomps" as they progress through the system, unless they take certain steps to try to ensure that they do. Also, having thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of players doesn't exactly hurt the chances of there being more people with skill level equal to yours. The initial size of the playerbase has often been a concern when talking about matchmaking.
• While there are bots you can play with and against, the AI is activated in non-bot matches in only one instance I am aware of; a player leaving a novice (limited heroes) match in DOTA 2. In other cases, other steps are taken to try to balance the match if one team has a quitter/quitters. If the quitter(s) don't come back, players can even leave the game as they please without receiving a penalty, as the game may become a lot less interesting and fun at that point. Matchmaking stats will be recorded though, to prevent abuse.
• Due to the bigger playerbase, there are also more tournaments, more people streaming the game, more people talking about it, etc. You may think "So what? Yeah they're big." but a thing like this is like free marketing; you can reach millions of people with an expensive advertising campaign and have a lot of them buy the game, but you an also reach millions of people with active streamers and popular ESports events and tournaments, and that can have an effect not completely unlike having a constant, very expensive marketing campaign going on.
• In turn, in my experience bigger communities are on average less friendly. This has not prevented many games from being long-term hits, though. LoL, DOTA, Counter-strike, need I say more?
• Most MOBAs are free to play, which makes it relatively low-risk to try them out as a new player. However, they also usually have large enough player bases and development teams/companies to support the free-to-play model well, and the MOBA genre was already relatively popular and well-established before F2P became a widespread thing.
• While there are progression systems in both MOBAs (such as levels, masteries, runes, etc.) and in Guns of Icarus (class levels through achievements), the Guns of Icarus progression system could (and has) been improved a bit. A sense of progression is usually a pretty good incentive for players to keep on playing. A lot of new people still ask "how do I level up" in the game, too. Maybe you could have a small text "Number of achievements required to level up your class: x" in the performance sheet?

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ    This is Alarma, the OWB - Official Warning Butterfly. She is here to tell you that the wall of text she warned you about will continue! Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

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Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ    This is Alarma, the OWB - Official Warning Butterfly. She is here to tell you that you are halfway through reading the wall of text! Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

This is possibly the most important point I'm trying to make in this point when it comes to player retention in terms of MOBAs vs GoIO: despite single players being able to have a relatively large impact on a MOBA match, teamwork is also rewarded. While there are many, many more complicated tactics that can be employed in both games, simple tactics in both games are rather straightforward - attack the enemy together, ambush the enemy in the middle of them fighting your friend, hit an enemy with low health with a long range spell, etc. All these are arguably easier to carry out than their counterparts in GoIO, especially with people you don't/cant communicate with. Let's inspect the most simple tactic: how easy was it for me, as a new player, to coordinate an attack on an unsuspecting enemy with my crew and an allied ship?

Below are some things I might have wanted to take into account in GoIO. Some of them may be less relevant in some encounters. Some of them are also less obvious than others to new players. These will only cover deathmatch, as it would be even more complicated to talk about King of the Hill and Crazy King.

• What role am I playing? Am I the captain/pilot, and if I am, did I customize the ship myself, did I choose a pre-set or did I join mid match? If I'm an engineer or a gunner, do I know my place on the ship? Do the others?
  • (In MOBA games, the roles and what people are supposed to do are often more or less straight forward in novice games. Usually two will go top, one mid, and two bottom. Sometimes there's a jungler, too. People can certainly choose less optimal heroes as newbies, but in League of Legends the majority of heroes can fill several roles, and also in DOTA 2 it's usually possible to "make do" even if your hero is less optimal. Also, if the "lanes" will not work as expected in the beginning, there's practically always someone who will point this out, in a more ..or less.. friendly manner. Finally, having say, 3-4 carries or 3-4 supports in a MOBA game is arguably less detrimental than having 2 pilots or 2 gunners on a ship in GoIO. It can even in some cases be advantageous to have that many supports of carries in DOTA.)
• What weapons am I using? Am I using a weapon combination such as gat + light flak, which is a fixed build in novice matches? Have I understood why I've been successful or unsuccessful in novice matches with my loadouts? If I am using for instance gat+flak, am I trying to get close and ram the enemy? Have I read the description of the light flak (or any of the guns), do I really know how it/they work? Am I aware of what an arming time is, and do I need to take it into account? How about gun projectile trajectories and how they are affected by ship movement? Does the gunner/engineer know of these things? If one of them knows, is he or she willing and able to communicate it to the other players? Do the engineers and gunners know which components to repair and rebuild, and when? Basically, do the 1-4 people on the ship know how the ship works? What about my allied ships and their crews?
  • (In a MOBA, I need to know my hero's/champion's - usually 4 different - skills and how they work. It will help me to know others' skills, both enemies' and allies', but this is usually relatively straightforward since I can "inspect" an enemy's skills and see them in action, even when I'm dead and when I'm not in the combat situation myself.)
• Note that I will not always get immediate, clear feedback on whether something works or not, as I may not understand the difference between small and large hit markers (it took me hundreds of games to realize it wasn't random), yellow or red hit markers, primary and secondary damage, aoe, etc. I will also not be able to see how fast the enemy components' or hull health goes down, and tracking broken and rebuilt components as a new player can be challenging. The main feedback I will be getting is whether I or the enemy died, and especially in the case of other long range ships or lengthy encounters, I may not actually realize why the encounter turned out to go the way it did. I may also not be aware of the human player to experienced player to AI ratio on the ships.
  • (In a MOBA, I will get instant feedback on how much damage is being dealt to me and the enemy. Keeping track of crowd control is less straightforward, but still relatively easy in most cases. If I want detailed information during or after the combat, I can browse the combat log. After I die, I can see a small screen saying what killed me and how much damage I took from all the spells and attacks that ultimately killed me together.)
• If I am the captain, how do I control my crew? Are my crew people who listen, people who don't listen, or AI? What classes are they? Do they have achievements that affect their gameplay choices? What equipment do they have? If they are AI, do I know how to control them?
  • (In a MOBA, there generally is no captain. People work together as a team, with people having different roles. Sometimes it falls on one person to initiate the combat, but this is by no means necessary nor is it something that the other people need to control, only react to.)
• Even if I see a ship, I may be unsure of whether it's a friendly or an enemy due to the spotting system. Have I looked at the map and can I quickly use it to determine who is where, friend or foe? Who am I attacking with? Who am I attacking?
  • (In a MOBA, there is a mini map system and a fog of war that makes identifying friend from foe relatively easy.)
• I likely cannot accurately estimate the chances of more enemies showing up. Have the other enemies been spotted? Have they been recently killed, and are they going to respawn? If so, where are the closest respawn points?
  • (In MOBAs, you can see enemy respawn timers and the respawn place is always the same. They can employ methods such as town portal scrolls and such to get into combat quickly, but these are often things a player has time to react to, unlike an enemy spawning on top of you or behind you, especially in a 3d game with no birds eye view. (Yeah yeah, I know, we're flying, but you get the point)
• I have to communicate with the other ship on when to start the attack or estimate their movements myself since actually reaching the enemy takes time. How fast are the ships? Is one a long range ship, and the other a brawler ship? Can I trust my ally to provide cover fire from afar? Can I get my crew to spot the enemy for the ally? Can I keep track of what is happening to my ally, like if he gets ambushed when trying to provide cover fire? How will I react if that happens?
  • (In a MOBA, I can often see my ally and my enemy on the screen at the same time. It helps to know what their capabilities are, but even if I don't know them, I have a pretty good overview of the combat situation, which helps me learn.)
• The steering mechanics of the airships. They take some time getting used to, so it's possible that the enemy will not only be able to see me coming from afar, but can also evade both of us in close combat and fly away or have his allies shoot me/us down.
  • (In MOBAs, while there are a number of spells and items that affect a player's movement, getting to understand what they do takes a fairly short amount of time compared to GoIO in my opinion. You can't shoot the left leg of a hero to make him unable to turn right, for instance. You can't also shoot the enemy hero's weapon, making him unable to attack, although there are a few disarming spells and items with a low duration and usually a relatively long cooldown. Also, in a MOBA, I can usually see if I'm being crowd controlled as a new player. In GoIO, I was often wondering why my crew wasn't shooting at the enemy, and I couldn't keep track of the enemies destroying or disabling my weapons all the time. I'm pretty sure my low level friends had some trouble with this as well.)
• How skilled is my crew? Do the people know who will be shooting and who will be repairing? What if the enemy disables 70% of my components within seconds? Do I run away or keep fighting? What if someone disconnects in the middle?
  • (In a MOBA, people disconnect more rarely than in GoIO in my experience, probably partly because there is a punishment system for leavers. I will often have more or less equally skilled people in my team, and as such, I can relatively safely assume that they will know how to react in different situations. The encounters also usually don't last as long on average than in GoIO, a certain fast-pacedness which helps me personally keep track of what has happened, what is happening and what I should do next.)
• How do I communicate my intent to my ally, and how extensively do I want to communicate?
  • (In MOBAs, this is often done through "pinging" people on the map and using quick voice or chat commands. Some MOBAs also have voice communication. In Guns of Icarus, I can either use team text chat, or captain's chat. I find that low level people have some trouble responding and reacting to actual voice for some reason, which is why I would think it could be useful to have quick voice commands in captain's chat.)
• What is the skill level of the enemy I am facing? Is the enemy a low or a high level player across the board, or is he using a class that has a level that doesn't accurately reflect his actual experience or skill? If there is a high level opponent I am facing, is it the captain or a crew member? If there is a high level opponent/ship in the enemy team, is it the one I am attacking?
  • (Reference to the spotting system. Also, in a MOBA, I can relatively easily see how well someone has done in a match by looking at the scoreboard - kills, deaths, and assists. It is, much like class level in GoIO, not a definite measurement of skill, but in my eyes a sufficiently good indication of the "danger level" the enemy presents to you. And yes, this could be turned into a discussion about initiator/carry/support k/d/a and junglers, but.. let's not.)

To be fair, I'll list some things a new player might want to take into account when coordinating a similar, relatively simple display of tactic and strategy in a MOBA. Some of these are also less relevant in some encounters, like in the list above. Most of them are fairly obvious though. I already compared GoIO situations to MOBAs, I won't be doing the same here as a lot of it has been covered already. I will instead provide some insight as to why I think these things are easier to understand than in GoIO.

• What skills do I have and how can I use them in a fight?
  • (In most MOBAs, most heroes have four special skills and either a ranged or a melee attack. Most of the mechanics, while being diverse, are relatively easy to grasp. Like in GoIO there are easier and harder ships to handle, there are easier and harder heroes/champions to handle. I will also constantly be able to see the numbers; both my results when I'm damaging the enemy hero, when I'm being damaged, and my own cooldowns, to give me an indication of the pace at which I can deal damage and buff/debuff heroes/champions.)
• Does my ally's hero have crowd control skills, such as stuns or slows? Does he have buffs or heals that can help us? Will he/she use them?
  • (In some MOBAs, if I choose to do so, I can see their allies' skills and read their descriptions when I click on the allied hero)
• Does the enemy hero have crowd control skills, such as stuns or slows, or does he have buffs or heals to counter our attack? Will he/she use them?
  • (Again, in some games, I can check this by clicking on the enemy hero)
  • Note that the answers to previous questions will likely be answered during the first encounter regardless of whether I checked the other heroes' skills before the combat or not, after which I theoretically will know to expect them in future encounters. In practice this naturally takes some time getting used to.
• Does the enemy have low health, giving me the upper hand?
  • (Health bars are universally visible, and I can see exact values at least in some games by clicking on the enemy hero. Sometimes there are buffs that reduce the amount of damage taken, but this is basically always indicated, sometimes by a simple text such as "-80". There are more advanced damage mechanics, but a lot of the time I will only need to be aware of the magic and physical resistances of the heroes.)
• What are the chances of more enemies showing up?
  • (In addition to there being a minimap where I can constantly see enemy heroes if any allied hero, unit, or building has them in their line of sight, at least DOTA 2 has quick voice commands for things such as "enemy missing", and in LoL people are supposed to call "MIA" when the enemy hero is missing, and as such can potentially be an as of yet invisible threat. There are also some heroes/champions with global spells so they can take part in the fight from afar, but these are more an exception than the rule.)
• How skilled is my team? Does it matter, or can we play this encounter more or less ignoring the rest of the team(s)?
  • (When talking about new players, it can take a while for them to react to situations. Oftentimes a relatively successful "gank" (coordinated surprise attack) leaves little room for the target's teammates to react.)
• How do I communicate my intent to my ally?
  • (In most MOBAs I have played, there are quick commands and so called "pings" that you can use to communicate your intent in a simple and efficient manner. Is a friend next to you in the forest, and do you want to kill an anemy? Click on your friend to ping him so he can see something is up, and write "go" or "come" in the chat if you want. Most people will pick up on this. There are also quick commands in DOTA for "fall back", and the majority of the community has also picked up on just writing "b" if they are falling back.
• What is the skill level of the enemy I am facing?
  • (Matchmaking will do its best to minimize the skill difference, and while it is not foolproof, it is reasonable to expect that the enemy is more or less equally skilled. I can also take steps to see the enemies' experience - player matches or player level - in most cases. In addition, I can relatively quickly determine the abilities and the danger a certain hero/champion presents to me to a certain degree when I see them in a fight or two, and although this danger level will likely change throughout the game, it is not unreasonable for me to be able to keep track of how they are doing, even as a new player.)

Now, as you might notice from this, MOBAs have a lot of mechanics that help new players with the learning curve. I'm not going to talk about FPSs over here, since a lot of us are likely familiar with them and they are usually even easier to get into. Yes, there are hundreds of different skills in MOBAs, and more than a hundred champions/heroes in the two biggest MOBAs, and yes, this takes some time getting used to. It was one of the main reasons I stayed away from MOBAs for a long time. There are "novice matches" at least in DOTA 2 though, where all the players can choose from a pool of some 20 heroes that are relatively straight forward to play. In Guns of Icarus, we have the tutorials, and we have some players who are willing to help people out. However, seeing real, immediate results, reading descriptions, asking questions, and investigating the game mechanics when not in game all have different "thresholds". Some people can't be bothered to investigate game mechanics, or ask questions (especially since they are not guaranteed to get answers), or even read descriptions. Unfortunately, a lot of people nowadays are all about immediate, observable results. Most MOBA games are good at delivering this.



Read from here if you only want to read the realism argument

Coming back to the topic at hand, realism. I wasn't here before the big realism patch, so I can't comment on the actual changes. However, I personally feel that the current system is a relatively good balance between realism and fun. I generally need to be a decent pilot with a decent crew if I want to have a decent shot at success. If the enemy has an AI/very low level crew or a powder monkey captain, it's not unreasonable to expect less of a challenge than against a seasoned pilot+crew. However, I can also bring more experienced pilots/crew down if me and my crew coordinate well enough together, even though this may be very challenging. This is important in my eyes, especially now that we have no matchmaking in place. The game does not revolve, of course, around 1v1. However, talking about teamwork between ships would make this wall of post even longer.

To put it simply, I probably wouldn't like to see "dogfighting" in the game. The Squid could use a slight maneuverability buff to make it more widely used, but other than that I feel maneuvaribility is in a relatively good place. Also, it is something that new players could have better tutorials about, especially how engine(s')/balloon health, piloting tools and ship mass affect it.

Also, on the realism of weapons; I'm not sure if it is too realistic that you need dozens of high-powered field gun projectiles to completely puncture/destroy a balloon, if it only takes a few shots to penetrate hull armor and practically all other components can be one-shot with it (no, we don't know how the balloon's internal mechanics work "lore-wise", but I'm not sure that's relevant to the discussion at hand). Nor does it seem realistic that you can't kill or harm anyone, only destroy their ships. Gaming should in my opinion never be too much about realism; even games such as Sims, IL-2 Sturmovik and Operation Flashpoint, games that are supposed to "simulate" living and combat to a certain degree, sacrifice realism in favor of gameplay. I don't think this is a problem, and I think few people would argue with this. However, the discussion of realism vs gameplay can be a fruitful one regardless. Sometimes the scales are tipped too much for some players along with some changes/patches, which has likely been the case here. There's a very large grey area.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ    This is Alarma, the OWB - Official Warning Butterfly. She is here to tell you that the wall of text she warned you about is over! Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ

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TL;DR;

I've tried to argue why I think GoIO has some issues with player retention compared to some successful games, including MOBA titles. Basically, getting to know and initially understand MOBA encounters can be rather simple when compared to getting to know and initially understand GoIO encounters. It can also be a lot easier to beat experienced players in many other successful games, which has in my opinion been especially important with for instance Counter-strike back when it had no matchmaking. I wasn't here to see the less realistic ship mechanics, but I think we're in a relatively good place now when it comes to balance between realism, fun, and the importance of the teamplay aspect. I also don't think realism is the biggest problem when thinking about how many people buy this game, and how many keep playing it. And no, that does not mean we should ignore it completely.

I also think this game and its community are awesome and this is a large reason why me and a lot of others do our best to contribute to them.

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On a side note, I had a moderator split the realism thread and add these posts to a new thread, as the old one had lost a lot of its purpose. Hopefully we will get some discussion going on here! I think the topic of player retention is very important not only to the developers, but to the rest of us also, who would love to see the community live long and prosper.

[Crafeksterty]

I shouldnt have scrolled down.

I was like "Yeah, got my snack, screen, full and ready to read but then i scrolled down out of curiosity and im like "sun of a betch".
So, what i have to say is not from EVERYthing you have said.


Most of what you are talking about, or part of it is the feeling in reaction and player inputt.
There is not much that the game rewards the player with. There is, but it is never confirmed. You have to go to the progress, then rewards section and see what you have been rewarded for playing the game. Not only reward, there really isnt a grand confirmation about what you are doing ingame. For example, kills and destruction is mostly set on the top left corner. So if i stole a kill, yeah it feels good. Doesnt matter, but it feels good. And there is nothing to tell me that my ship got the kill, just the upper left corner.

Same goes for when you win or loose a match. The VICTORY or DEFEAT text isnt as celebrated as it should be for the viewpoint of a player. The music is understating the victory or the defeat. I mean ive learnt to identify which song is what but its not impactfull enough for a DEFEAT or VICTORY to notice it correctly.


In Titanfall, when you win, you get a Victory but on loss you get a muted Defeat
While here in Goio it is colorless and doesnt really make sure you know exactly what just happened.
Im not saying Goio should have this, it is just an example.

Another thing is Tool use, which they are actually trying to apply to the game. Tool use in the future will show some kind of sign of it being used (As seen once in the dev app). Because right now, the engineers on the ship dont exactly have any idea why the baloon or engines are getting damaged. Maybe it is best not to know and just repair, but it is just another example on how impactless the game feels for players.


I want to revert back to music as i feel like that is the best form of impact they can deliver to the game without making it too gamey.
A dynamic song on kill, or on death can make them dramatic enough for everyone to notice. Engaging players that something is wrong, or Success!
When the ship gets impact damage (Ship collision, terrain, mines), the music can start to haze itself in a way that it evokes the emotion of no control.
If the ship has ALOT of fire, an intense song starts to give the player an understanding that your in deep shit.
Or a harpoon latching onto your ship gives a warning soundclip of lets say a horror violin scare.
Explosive weapons from your ship hitting an enemy ship on their armor down can have small musical impact on each impactfull hit.
Or when your hull health is down and your screen is going red, a song may also signify the danger by slowly muting everything for a high pitched sound (Like Flash bang from counterstrike) the more damaged you are.

This is something you have alot of in Dota, or League of Legends with more gamey sound effects and voice overs.
Counter Strike Global offencive has music that indicates exactly what is going on.

Goio can rely on music which further makes the experience both cinematic, fun or engaging, gamey in some sense without touching the realism.


What GOIO is doing right in these terms is some bits of music with the drums. And how the guns shoot. So each ammo has different effects and sound. Along with when they hit, they show if it was a bad shot under arming time. You know, the hit markers getting red or not etc.

[Schwerbelastung]

I shouldnt have scrolled down.

I was like "Yeah, got my snack, screen, full and ready to read but then i scrolled down out of curiosity and im like "sun of a betch".
So, what i have to say is not from EVERYthing you have said.


Most of what you are talking about, or part of it is the feeling in reaction and player inputt.
There is not much that the game rewards the player with. There is, but it is never confirmed. You have to go to the progress, then rewards section and see what you have been rewarded for playing the game. Not only reward, there really isnt a grand confirmation about what you are doing ingame. For example, kills and destruction is mostly set on the top left corner. So if i stole a kill, yeah it feels good. Doesnt matter, but it feels good. And there is nothing to tell me that my ship got the kill, just the upper left corner.

Same goes for when you win or loose a match. The VICTORY or DEFEAT text isnt as celebrated as it should be for the viewpoint of a player. The music is understating the victory or the defeat. I mean ive learnt to identify which song is what but its not impactfull enough for a DEFEAT or VICTORY to notice it correctly.


In Titanfall, when you win, you get a Victory but on loss you get a muted Defeat
While here in Goio it is colorless and doesnt really make sure you know exactly what just happened.
Im not saying Goio should have this, it is just an example.

Another thing is Tool use, which they are actually trying to apply to the game. Tool use in the future will show some kind of sign of it being used (As seen once in the dev app). Because right now, the engineers on the ship dont exactly have any idea why the baloon or engines are getting damaged. Maybe it is best not to know and just repair, but it is just another example on how impactless the game feels for players.


I want to revert back to music as i feel like that is the best form of impact they can deliver to the game without making it too gamey.
A dynamic song on kill, or on death can make them dramatic enough for everyone to notice. Engaging players that something is wrong, or Success!
When the ship gets impact damage (Ship collision, terrain, mines), the music can start to haze itself in a way that it evokes the emotion of no control.
If the ship has ALOT of fire, an intense song starts to give the player an understanding that your in deep shit.
Or a harpoon latching onto your ship gives a warning soundclip of lets say a horror violin scare.
Explosive weapons from your ship hitting an enemy ship on their armor down can have small musical impact on each impactfull hit.
Or when your hull health is down and your screen is going red, a song may also signify the danger by slowly muting everything for a high pitched sound (Like Flash bang from counterstrike) the more damaged you are.

This is something you have alot of in Dota, or League of Legends with more gamey sound effects and voice overs.
Counter Strike Global offencive has music that indicates exactly what is going on.

Goio can rely on music which further makes the experience both cinematic, fun or engaging, gamey in some sense without touching the realism.


What GOIO is doing right in these terms is some bits of music with the drums. And how the guns shoot. So each ammo has different effects and sound. Along with when they hit, they show if it was a bad shot under arming time. You know, the hit markers getting red or not etc.

That's a pretty good point, with the colour of the victory/defeat texts and the sound. This is actually as far as I know the very reason that slot machines function the way they do - a lot of people are drawn to the immediate audiovisual feedback they get when they win. The bigger the win, the more prominent the DINGDINGDINGs and the flashing lights.

If slot machines also needed you to check the "Games left/Wins" display (or whatever it's called in English) every time you won or lost, not nearly as much people would be playing them.
As you put it, it's the feeling in reaction and player input. Feelings are a very, very powerful thing, and people may not always even realize when their feelings are being manipulated - for the lack of a less sinister word - when it comes to media, games, or even slot machines.

Maybe it would be a good idea to add some music, as Crafeksterty suggested, at least to victories and defeats, and maybe even some more subtle audio cues on kills and deaths or something similar? And although it could be hilarious to hear this (disclaimer: 4 sec screen capture of a screaming girl apparently from the movie Psycho, with the violin horror effect) every time I get harpooned, I believe there are a lot of people here who wouldn't necessarily like too much change, so maybe start with baby steps.

[Mattilald Anguisad]

We'll I for one don't think Muse should worry with player retention untill existing player retention makes servers too slow.

[Queso]

Regarding retention in Counter Strike, the only reason I play it now is because of matchmaking. I can guarantee getting in a decently good game fairly quickly with friends. I could never do that before unless I found a really good server and stuck with the community. Right now GoIO is like the dedicated server, but there is only so much you can do under that model. If the game wants to grow it needs something more flexible.

[Schwerbelastung]

We'll I for one don't think Muse should worry with player retention untill existing player retention makes servers too slow.

I'm not really sure what to make of this. I'm curious as to why you think this way? I feel like player retention is a very important aspect to any game developer - and especially to an indie developer without a widely established playerbase - that wants to be successful.

[Mattilald Anguisad]

Yes but high amount of players is making servers go slow or have large lag issues. Thus far the solution was to wait for the number of players to drop aftehr the sales - witch is counterintuiative if you actualy want to keep the players. I don't know is it server issue, or data center issue of the issue of the ISP providing internet to the data center, but it's a serious issue that detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

[Schwerbelastung]

Yes but high amount of players is making servers go slow or have large lag issues. Thus far the solution was to wait for the number of players to drop aftehr the sales - witch is counterintuiative if you actualy want to keep the players. I don't know is it server issue, or data center issue of the issue of the ISP providing internet to the data center, but it's a serious issue that detracts from the enjoyment of the game.

I hear you, after being disconnected from the game and seeing multiple "Steam service unavailbale" messages multiple times in the past days, connection problems can be annoying.

However, it is not completely counterintuitive to wait for the number of players to drop down after the sales. We were given an example in junior high about economics, and especially small-scale service providers. It went a little bit like this;

Hundreds of years ago, a tailor was running a family shop. They had one machine to help them make clothes, and they were doing ok. They weren't generating huge amounts of profit, but they certainly weren't making a loss either. One day, they get an order from no other than the king of their country himself. He needs thousands of specifically tailored clothes for a royal party, and needs them within one month. He has contacted the tailor because he knows he has the skill and the technology to make such clothes.

The tailor now has a problem. He has two options. Either he spends a lot of money to purchase new machines and hire new staff, so that he can fulfill his king's order, or he has to decline the order, and would therefore not get the vast sum of gold the king would offer him for his services. He would also very likely get bad publicity if the story came out. If he chooses to purchase the new machines and hire the new staff, what will he do with them after the order has been delivered? These machines would likely cost as much or very likely even more gold than the king would reward him with, not to mention staff wages. He could certainly use the machines later, but would he actually need that many machines later - ever? Could he sell them? How much money would he get, and how time consuming would it be? Would the pros outweigh the cons?

I've thought of this scenario every time I see people complaining about game developers not buying a lot of servers to handle launch/patch/expansion days. For a (usually) limited amount of time, the servers are completely overloaded and the discussion boards are flooded with complaints, but it dies down as soon as the number of people trying to play the game simultaneously drops to the "normal" level.

As such, it's not always the smartest option to adjust to the largest order of royal clothes - or the highest possible number of simultaneous players.

Furthermore, games that have their playerbase multiplied during a sale are very often in my experience indie games. Large, successful games that get loads of new players during a sale usually have a lot of server capacity, and are trying to perhaps make up for the "unused machines" - make up for the players that have stopped playing the game. Also, these sales of successful games usually have the games still cost a lot more than indie games that are on sale; I've often seen sales of indie games for $1-$5, and also often seen sales of successful games for $15-$30. Sometimes this is not exactly true, as was with the case with The Secret World, a very well made online MMO with a (in my opinion) simply amazing storyline and dialogue in multiple languages.. but it ended up being a flop. The publishers were prepared for a flood of players.. but it never happened. First they had to get rid of the monthly subscription, then cut staff, decreasing the rate of content updates. There have also been many sales since, and the playerbase has been fluctuating, but it never really was what it should have been.

One thing I've been wondering about is why especially large developers / game companies don't at least rent extra server capacity so they wouldn't face the huge negative publicity that comes from server overload. Think Sim City, for instance. I'm not an expert on this, but I would really like to hear their point of view about this. Of course indie developers could also probably employ this strategy, but it would likely cause a bigger impact on their budget compared to a gaming company with an annual turnover of millions of billions of dollars.

[HamsterIV]

I don't think the MOBA to GOIO comparison is that great. Individual stats in a MOBA are easier to track since all players succeed (kill an enemy hero) or fail (die) as individuals. In GOIO a crew succeeds or fails together. There is no algorithm to tell if an individual player's actions were responsible for the victory or defeat.

The MVP could have been the engineer who did nothing for most of the match but kept the ship alive during a critical moment, the captain who decided to regroup with his ally instead of meat grind, or the gunner whose knocked out the enemy ship's gun right as it was about to get a kill. The importance of these actions can't be recorded in the game log. It is up to the captain, crew, and sometimes the enemy to give recognition for exceptional behavior.

MOBA's are like baseball where an individual's performance directly effects the game's results in a traceable way. The number of home runs, strike outs, and catches can be tracked. Where as GOIO is more like football (American) and to a certain degree football (proper). The guy who runs into the end zone and the guy who throws the ball get most of the glory, but without the every single member of the team doing their job, nobody wins.

[Schwerbelastung]

I don't think the MOBA to GOIO comparison is that great. Individual stats in a MOBA are easier to track since all players succeed (kill an enemy hero) or fail (die) as individuals. In GOIO a crew succeeds or fails together. There is no algorithm to tell if an individual player's actions were responsible for the victory or defeat.

The MVP could have been the engineer who did nothing for most of the match but kept the ship alive during a critical moment, the captain who decided to regroup with his ally instead of meat grind, or the gunner whose knocked out the enemy ship's gun right as it was about to get a kill. The importance of these actions can't be recorded in the game log. It is up to the captain, crew, and sometimes the enemy to give recognition for exceptional behavior.

MOBA's are like baseball where an individual's performance directly effects the game's results in a traceable way. The number of home runs, strike outs, and catches can be tracked. Where as GOIO is more like football (American) and to a certain degree football (proper). The guy who runs into the end zone and the guy who throws the ball get most of the glory, but without the every single member of the team doing their job, nobody wins.

That is both true and a little bit untrue. While in a MOBA, it is far easier to track individual performance (tracking kills, deaths and assists is enough), the problem I think GoIO has in comparison that it offers no way to track relative individual performance. When I'm thinking MOBAs k/d/a, I'm thinking kills/component destroys/accuracy for gunners, rebuilds/fire extinguishes/buffs for engineers, and possibly crew kills/ram kills/time survived in combat for pilots? Note that these are just things I can come up with off the top of my head, but examples of things that could be used to determine the relative efficiency of the different classes. And no, this does not account for the gunning engineers etc. It's just a short and simple example.

You give examples of MVPs in GoIO, but suggest that tracking actual game performance in a MOBA is relatively straightforward. What about the person who destroyed the barracks/inhibitors while the others were killing the enemy heroes/champions elsewhere? What about the support who healed his team and kept the carries from dying? Supports who disabled the enemy so that their team could escape in peace? People who TP'd to critical fights in order to have the enemy retreat? What about the support who placed the most wards, saving allies from ganks and prevented enemies from doing roshan/dragon/baron etc. in peace? People who did the most damage in a fight, yet lost the kill to a nuker support? People who jungled most of the game and didn't get many kills, deaths, or assists, but got all the crucial kills and did the most damage in late game, perhaps even almost single-handedly destroyed the enemy base, because they were so strong? Supports that actually sacrificed themselves and died in order to protect a carry?

Where as GOIO is more like football (American) and to a certain degree football (proper). The guy who runs into the end zone and the guy who throws the ball get most of the glory, but without the every single member of the team doing their job, nobody wins.

I could go on, but I think you've gotten the point. Nothing in a MOBA that I just mentioned can be defined from k/d/a accurately, and that is part of the reason why watching competitive games with experienced commentators is so much fun for a lot of new players. Not only is it definitely and absolutely certain that you don't win a high level competitive MOBA match without efficient teamwork, there is a level of depth in the game (as there is in GoIO) that goes way beyond the stats.

The stats are there so that people can get a leaderboard. Something they can be proud of, something that shows they need to step it up. Something to make their performance more visible, something to make the game more fun.

(Disclaimer: your personal mileage and opinion may vary when it comes to stats being fun in games)

[The Djinn]

The stats are there so that people can get a leaderboard. Something they can be proud of, something that shows they need to step it up. Something to make their performance more visible, something to make the game more fun.

Stats are fine. That strange number that judges how fine is a problem though. I've gotten a score of .8 for Piloting during a game where we got only one kill and died about 6 times...but it failed to account for the fact that each and every one of those deaths was a several-minutes long chase that kept the capture point in our hands and/or prevented an enemy capture, allowing my team a 650-0 victory. That's not bad piloting: that was a case of knowing that my ship alone couldn't defeat the enemy team, and thus deciding to focus on surviving and trick piloting to hold the point as long as humanly possible.

The thing that MOBAs do is display a stat screen that shows all the information about total contribution. To use League of Legends as an example, it shows the following:

Kills / Deaths / Assists
Total Creep Kills
Total Tower Kills
Total Damage
Total Damage to Champions
Total Damage Taken
Healing Done
Gold Earned
Longest Killing Spree
Inhibitors Destroyed
Monsters Killed
...
...and so on.

What it doesn't try to do is put a value on this. It doesn't say "Oh...you only got 1 kill and 8 deaths, so you get a 1.2 out of 10." That's because those deaths might have come as a result of single-handedly backdooring the enemy's base while the rest of your team distracted them, resulting in a net gain for your team even though you died every time.

GoI might want to take a leaf out of that book. Don't give use a score: let us figure out the value for ourselves. Instead, simply display numbers:

Engines/Balloons/Armor/Guns destroyed
Engines/Balloons/Armor/Guns rebuilt
Ships destroyed
Total deaths
Fires lit
Fires extinguished
Points contested
Points defended
Ram kills
Crew kills
...and so on.

Even if you merely display a few...say, a players most impressive three at the end of a game. Just don't attempt to make a system that judges the quality of their gameplay by the result.

[Schwerbelastung]

Even if you merely display a few...say, a players most impressive three at the end of a game. Just don't attempt to make a system that judges the quality of their gameplay by the result.

Well said. The same things you described apply in DOTA. There are numerous different statistics spectators and casters can track in a match, many of which are similar or identical to the ones you listed. There are even graphs showing how the game has evolved, so you can see if someone goes from being the underdog to actually being on top.

The problem with the k/d/a is exactly as you described; in a lot of public games, supports who performed near flawlessly may get a lot of flak since they actually want as few kills as possible - yet, the "crowd" usually just keeps track of kills and deaths. The supports certainly want to assist their team with kills, but as they are the player who needs the least gold, they want to let the carries get the killing blows (which earn them more gold).

Most of the time, people actually tend to more or less ignore the assists after the game and just go "omg noob support u got 0/4 u suck uninstall". The support might go "Well, I actually got 0/4/28..", and the first guy usually either goes silent, says that assists don't count, or simply insults the guy ignoring the argument.

If you had more sophisticated in game statistics or a playerbase that is universally able to read between the lines when it comes to simple statistics (let's be serious here; this might not happen), this would not be a problem. The problem, however, is that complexity breeds confusion; I believe there is a reason why the advanced statistics in DOTA for instance are only available to the spectators and casters.