State of the Community

[Lord Dick Tim]

(this post was originally made in the previous forums, with a few following posts by community members concering their thoughts on the presented issue.)
http://gunsoficarus.com/community/forumarchive/discussion/1213/state-of-the-community#Item_8

During the course of the previous day of testing and tinkering with the new game build a single thought, or phrase was brought up by a few players rather consistently. Generally there was a belief that GOI had developed a severe rift between "Awesome" players and well, everybody else.

Now, as is typical in any gaming community there is always the hardcore gamer and the casual, but rarely is it made so glaringly obvious which group a person belongs to in GOI, yet not in the typical way normally associated with many games.
Without perks, loot, extra bonuses or skills the elite players, which I really dislike using that word, are only distinguished by the crushing victories they have over other players.

Now this can't be attributed to only one person, as GOI takes a group of players on a ship, and a group of captains on a team working in concert with one another to be successful. Instead it's being attributed to a small upper class of players that regularly dominate casual or random crews without even being members of a clan or other social structure.

I'm talking mostly about us, the forum rats, the green names on friends lists that discuss strategies and dig through patch notes and debate tactics.
It's seems our debilitating advantage over most other players is communication. We talk, we are familiar with one another, we can adapt to each others tactics and strategies. We know who can shoot, who can fly, and who can keep a ship in the air with pixie dust and happy thoughts.

One instance during the day, a player was frustrated with repeated losses, crushing defeats and incapable crew mates and asked for some help from the lobby. I joined, a second later my ship is fully crewed with veteran players, all more then capable of outstanding performance. Instead of being happy for the help the player was further exasperated by what he saw as exactly why he had been loosing before, we had all automatically clumped together and true to form carried the match and slaughtered the opposition.

[awkm]

You've brought up a good one.  You've also presented the best solution:

Form teams with new players.  Be accommodating and invite them to the forums. 

It's only obvious in this game is because we have a very small community.  The more players we have, the less common the upper tier players will be.  You see the same kind of behavior in schools with the formation of social cliques.  This is nothing new.  It's just how hard you want to work at keeping those cliques closed from the outside.  It's hard for us as developers to mix the player base up, we can't force you to play with people you don't want to.  I mean, we're a team based game, you should be able to choose a very good team.

So really, what I'm saying is that the ball is in your court.

Perhaps you can split up your crew of 4 into 2 ships and take on new players in the open spots on your ships.  This is something we want to promote as much as possible.  The community is already pretty accommodating to people who come in.

And this isn't just to point fingers on you personally.  Everyone can do their part to make this community as inclusive as possible.  Hopefully this new forum format will help.  Everyone's forum name is their in-game name.  It provides a 3-tier communication platform (1st being in-game, 2nd being in Steam).

[SeaMichelle]

I personally think that the biggest problem is the language barrier. Because most other games don't rely on communication very much, everybody has that chance to be successful. But with GoIO, having such a heavy emphasis on communication, it's difficult for the large chunk of the playerbase that speaks very little or no English. The reason so many of these newer players don't do as they're told isn't because they don't listen, it's because they don't understand what the heck they're being screamed at for. It's like traveling to a foreign country and being arrested, while not knowing what these angry-sounding cops are charging you with. And because GoIO is such a different game from most other games, what people should be doing isn't common knowledge for newer players because they're not used to the format. As a result, these foreign players are just trying to learn the ropes, while unknowingly lifting their crew off the ground with them.
(Sorry if off-topic, just trying to make a point..)

[N-Sunderland]

I personally think that the biggest problem is the language barrier. 

I fully agree, especially with the recent mass of Russians arriving in the game. Hopefully the international boards on this forum will help these players get a better understanding of the game. At the very least we might be able to cut the yelling down a bit.

[Pickle]

I'll copy across my replies from the original thread..


--
Good players tend to cluster around each other, and that's not just the technically good but the good to play with as well.

You play a game with X, you get on well, you look to join X when you see them playing, and you realise that X plays with Y and Z on a regular basis and they're pretty good too. So you add Y and Z to your friends list and you look to join them when you see them about. Soon there's an alphabet of players that get to know each other, and before you know it everyone else thinks it's a clique.


--
I think the twin topics of midgame joiners and quick match joiners have to be raised here. Established players cluster in part because they want to end the game with the same crew they started with - or if they lose a player they want a predictable AI replacament. Predictable in that they know the AI won't land them with a duplicate Pilot, or three Gunners, or three Buffing Engineers. They don't want to find themselves half way through the game and saddled with three crew members they didn't start with, they don't know, who refuse to communicate and only want to man a gun or run around polishing the brass.

Midgame joiners are a big problem at the moment, and I don't have a workable solution that doesn't introduce other problems by encouraging elitism.

[awkm]

The solution to mid-match join is easy.  Just disallow it.  However, we never went that route because the community wasn't big enough to fill up to 16 players on a basic 2v2.  That's why mid-match join is valid.  Not until the community grows can we move away from mid-match joining.

Maybe after this sale we can... but a lot of it is in the hands of the players to bring people in.  We're always doing our best to support the community from a day to day basis.  Come on, we release patches every month

Language barrier is a tough one... time to start learning some Russian!

[Furrymessiah]

Personally, since the new build was released, I've been going out of my way to balance out teams -- moreso than I was in the past. The concept of tutoring a bunch of green recruits is a valid one, if they're willing to listen. I saw a couple of brand new players dominate in a few matches, because they listened to more experienced players.

But more than that, they came into the game with fresh eyes.

One of the experiences I had last night was in a game I dropped into. Two new players picked a Spire with a Heavy Carronade, and me as the single engie on board. Not a word was spoken over VC, and I jumped on the main gun because no one else had. We proceeded to wipe the floor with the more experienced team, 7-0...with five of those kills coming from my gun. I never thought of the Heavy Carronade as a pro-tier weapon before, but after that match, my opinion had changed, and all thanks to a brand new captain and a gunner who didn't know what he was doing.

I think that if we take the time to make the community more welcoming to the new players, it will aid a lot in player retention in the upcoming weeks. Consider taking a handful of those non-green names under your wing as sort of an erstwhile mentoring program. In addition to more experienced player teaching the recruits, the newbs can teach us old dogs a new trick or two. Don't discount a player because of a 1 or 2 next to his name. After all, Rank means next to nothing.

[Pickle]

It's more than just language, there's a cultural barrier as well.

Quote of the day from a thinkly accented crew member, "We Russian.  Russian like violence.  Go battle"

All very well, but we were on a pure sniping Junker and would get slaughtered in CQB.

[mrgedman]

I have noticed the rift, but I think it is really a difference (as some others have hinted at) between ships that have mics and ships that don't.  I only have a few hours experience, but feel i have just about 'mastered' most of the roles.  The game does have a slight learning curve, but it is not that tricky.  Advanced team wide tactics and stuff rarely come into pub games, so there is still plenty for me to learn. 

Anyway- I am at the point where I DO NOT want to play on a ship with people that don't have mics.  I have rolled veteran ships with a buncha level 1-2 guys with all mics, cause we communicate... Still, noobs that can't outfit a ship, or just play goldfish all the time kinda piss me off, even though I am brand new myself...

Anyway, this game just seems like a mando mic game... Badass vets aside, if a buncha noobs have mics and arent morons, they will do just fine vs a single boat of vets... a team full of vets that communicate between ships... thats an entirely different beast that I have not experienced yet...

[Pickle]

Mics are no good when the crew doesn't listen.  And not listening isn't always due to a language barrier.

[N-Sunderland]

I've never played with a mic, yet I do just fine. I listen intently to the captain, and use the text chat a lot. You should never ignore players who can't talk.

[ZiggyPox]

Naaa, as long as captain has mic and gives orders everything is allright. He organises crew and decides where ship is going. For example, when captain is turning our ship to attack goldship that is close, he says that loud, so I won't attack in half way of turning a pyramidion, that is far away, wasting my rounds and risking reloading while that goldfish is allready in dead-center of my aiming.

And I don't mind losing. It is funny, really. When you think everything is allright, and you blasting their ship from from a side, and in moment they make this wibbly wobbly timey wimey turning, bang bang and you are dead. Just... just how? Just everything goes down, flames here, all components destroyed and how? Technically how? This is fun.

[Latrew]

Good evening, fellas.

You might have already figured this out, but i want to shed some light on russian...well...thing.

Basically, it's all thanks to a group of russian video-bloggers, who've been streaming GoI for quite awhile now. Yes, it's good for GoI popularity, but there's problem that i want to warn you about.
What you're facing right know isn't language or cultural barrier. Majority of russian crews rushes straight into enemy fire without any tactic not because they can't hear or understand veteran players, but because they're not willing to do so. Mostly they're playing GoI (well, with some exceptions ofc) because they want to meet/interact/shoot down their favourite videobloggers, and because those bloggers also pointed them out a new place for being aggressive. It's very specific (yet rather big) group of players(i mean ONLY those videobloggers followers, not all russian players, and i want to stress it out), based onto useless agression, lack of respect to anyone and, well, duh, games. I'm not talking about everyone of them, i'm quite sure there's also enough decent people there, but still... Just trust me, you don't want to learn russian.

And I'm really glad that you don't understand crew and ship names. It might cause some serious mental damage.

[ZiggyPox]

Why not? This is GREAT!... unless you are sorted in their team but STILL in persistent world they would make for great pirates and bandits!

I love to play against russians, they are so aggressive and chaotic. Sometimes easy to deal because of lack of the strategy and sometimes just "they are going to RAM us? With GOLDFISH?" and they DO! And sometimes it turns for us worse than expected.

Make harpoon a mandatory equipment for every russian capitan and I will be happy like little girl. And give them option to paint their whole ships jet-black. This would be awsome.

[Lord Dick Tim]

Ziggy sir, you are my new best friend.