I am begging, please add minimum level requirements to pilot...

[Atruejedi]

I'm at my breaking point. I don't fly in a clan. I don't stack matches. I purposely break up stacks in an attempt to make matches more fair and more fun. I try to keep people in the game. And I have a long line of nubs following me around all the time. But despite all this, I cannot address the biggest issue in this game, in my been-around-way-too-long-and-played-way-too-damn-much-with-all-types-of-players opinion: NEW PLAYERS PILOTING SHIPS!

This is the absolute BANE OF THIS OTHERWISE GOOD GAME. Tonight was more absurd than the typical absurdity. Three on three matches, over and over again, where there was ONE novice level 1 pilot who didn't speak/type/read and readied up immediately with awful loadouts on his person and his ship and had no freaking IDEA how to play. Why does Muse allow this to happen? It punishes EVERYBODY, especially ME!

My proposal is simple and would be effective:

REQUIRE PILOTS TO BE A CERTAIN LEVEL OF ENGINEER AND/OR GUNNER.

Nearly all problems in the game are almost instantly solved. Player retention is increased. People have to WORK to pilot and LEARN to play the game. I've brought this up to Muse before in the fireside chats, and they pay me lip service and say they'll "look into it." But nothing changes. People buy the game, they play for a day, they have AWFUL experiences, and they never come back.

Let's pretend Muse WOULD implement minimum requirements. What do you think they should be? I would say you have to be at least NOT a novice as engineer AND gunner. Once you hit level 8 gunner and level 8 engineer (especially engineer), you are free to try to pilot. At this point... I'm so near the edge of just giving up. I've tried hard to give people good experiences in this game, and despite the random applause I got tonight, it doesn't make up for the reporting and the frustration when Muse could EASILY make a POSITIVE change to their game with MINIMAL effort.

Phew. That was a lot of caps. I hope you appreciate my rage, and I'm certain most of you have had the exact same experiences. You can only break your own butt so many times in an attempt to carry the team before you can't deal with it anymore. And even IF you DO carry... then the nub pilot on your team THINKS HE DID WELL! Ugh! So, you know my thoughts: level 8 gunner and level 8 engineer in order to pilot. What would YOU propose?

I need a drink.

[nanoduckling]

Something like this would be good for the game. Even if the role was locked similarly to the ships for novices it would be better than nothing. Part of why people stack is novice pilots. I cant tell you the number of times myself or the person I'm crewing for has had terrible novice ally after terrible novice ally so one of us goes and flies the other ship. If I'm having to do that when I just want a quiet time engineering or shooting you can bet I'm not breaking up the team to balance the lobby; I've hit my 'lets see if you are an ignorant jackass' quota for the day.

Worth having it unlockable with a warning to the player, 4-packs will be peeved if they cant play together for a start. But highlight these players in the lobby so others can make an informed decision as to if they want to fly with them or not and explain to them when they unlock it that no one is going to fly with them unless they (1) listen to their allies advice (worded in such a way as to make it clear they should basically just do whatever we recommend, and (2) no one is going to ally with them if they don't have a mic.

I've always felt the level requirements are a bit odd though. Ideally it would be locked by MMR with MMR fixed so it more reliably reflects skill, but then again ideally I would have my space-mecha-death-dinosaur in my shed for my upcoming world conquest. Most players I know use number of games played rather than level to judge skill since 'chieve grinding makes levels meaningless. 100 games would seem a reasonable number.

The unstructured nature of novice introduction to the game is a big problem though. I'm pretty sure that constantly losing is what puts off a lot of novices and damages retention, but they constantly lose because they are free to do really, really, really dumb things. This is a good idea, getting crushed by someone because your flare/flamer pyra isn't the new meta your novice captain figured is no fun for anyone, including the novice.

[Arturo Sanchez]

Less about novice pilot required. More inclined towards level requirement for pilot tools.

No moonshine, hydro, chute, allowed until lvl 25.

At least then there's no fear of instant deaths from retard tool use.


Also Novice pilots can't pilot in advanced until they graduate their pilot.

[BlackenedPies]

Less about novice pilot required. More inclined towards level requirement for pilot tools.

No moonshine, hydro, chute, allowed until lvl 25.

At least then there's no fear of instant deaths from retard tool use.

Making an engi level requirement for pilots is a good idea. Pilot tools shouldn't be restricted because they're required to play. Two ships practically need moonshine and hydro is an absolute necessity. By limiting tools to those over level 25 it makes it impossible for low level pilots to compete.

[FranckM]

Maybe just require a certain amount of matches instead. I think that the most important thing here is that new players understand the game. This should of course not count in novices matches but I think that even of you have played mainly gunner you can understand the game.

Another idea would be a quiz you need to answer correctly to unlock pilot. You could ask question about any position on a ship to make sure that the new pilots understand his duties.

[Arturo Sanchez]

Less about novice pilot required. More inclined towards level requirement for pilot tools.

No moonshine, hydro, chute, allowed until lvl 25.

At least then there's no fear of instant deaths from retard tool use.

Making an engi level requirement for pilots is a good idea. Pilot tools shouldn't be restricted because they're required to play. Two ships practically need moonshine and hydro is an absolute necessity. By limiting tools to those over level 25 it makes it impossible for low level pilots to compete.

without fail. a noob with moon, chute and hydro simply kills the ship. No exceptions. Every single novice that ever uses it, just kills the ship.

[Brewstone]

I'd say a combined level (Engi + gunner) of about 15 before you can pilot. I, in general, use that system to gauge how well someone is going to do already and it seems to work out decently well. The other idea of a certain number of games played is a good one

However, we can look at it the other way. When I bought the game I bought it with four friends, as we were playing we found another new group of four and played some really decent matches (mainly because we all had mics and had all read the wiki). If one of my friends hadn't been able to captain, I'm not certain how long they would've continued to play the game, which would have lessened my interest in it.

[Fynx]

Three on three matches, over and over again, where there was ONE novice level 1 pilot who didn't speak/type/read and readied up immediately with awful loadouts on his person and his ship and had no freaking IDEA how to play. Why does Muse allow this to happen? It punishes EVERYBODY, especially ME!

It's most important when you have a pilot like that, but it's also relevant in case of unresponsive/lochnagarhappy/fuckoffm8andletmeplay crew members.
And I have bad news for you.

When you encounter such a person you should report that person for being uncooperative. You should also ask everyone around to do the same.
Just don't expect any results.

So. Call a moderator. That moderator will sit in that lobby while you suffer through the next match. Then that moderator will try to communicate with the offending novice person. There's a chance that the offending player will completely ignore any messages from the moderator or state lack of ability to communicate in english or something similar. As long as the offending player doesn't actually offend someone there's little that will be done about it. Why so? Because it's the current Muse policy. Especially about minor offences like this one here.

No moonshine, hydro, chute, allowed until lvl 25.

That's pretty ridiculous. Every tool can be abused and hydrogen is one of basic tools that every beginner pilot should have. Always.
And abusing tools is just the tip of the iceberg. Lack of knowledge about the tools is just a part of lack of knowledge about how ships work.

Making an engi level requirement for pilots is a good idea. Pilot tools shouldn't be restricted because they're required to play. Two ships practically need moonshine and hydro is an absolute necessity. By limiting tools to those over level 25 it makes it impossible for low level pilots to compete.

Moonshine is much better than kerosene for galleons and pyramidions, but it doesn't change the fact that little experience makes far more difference here and we're talking about inexperienced pilots so it's rather irrelevant. Tools shouldn't be locked in the first place though.

With current level system novice status is not working.
I recently encountered lvl 20 junker pilot ordering the gunner to shoot upper deck gatling at the enemy 1000m away in Dunes.
That was not a joke.
Number of matches played seems to be a good requirement. 100 matches should be enough to provide players with some minimum general information about the game.

It's good for new players to play as crew (preferably engineers as it's the most used class) and especially crewing under more experienced captains. And of course it's good when they understand english and accept recommended loaouts and listen to the captain...
Let's just stop dreaming and accept the situations when there's a new player who wants to play as pilot and only pilot and absolutely nothing else. And I'd say that's okay if there's progress and some thinking involved. Forbidding them from piloting in non-novice matches is a thing to consider though.

Apart from implementation point of view, locking certain tools for novices would be nice. Such as spyglass only for engineer/gunner or wrench only for gunner.

[Mean Machine]

Yeah, I agree, novice players are often consuming all fun out of the matches with either their attitude or being straight up stupid and not caring about anything.
I happened to be in that lobby with Atruejdi and the ship and players he talked about were refusing to listen to anybody, because they "play to have fun". But their fun seems  to involve awful lot of charging into three ships alone and getting annihilated and doing obsolutely zero for their team. Even less than zero, zero would be to at least not  give any kils to enemy team. Players like this don't even realise or they don't care that they are destroying fun for other players. You don't have to win to have fun, but at  least try. Like Atruejedi, I often stay in non-stacked team, but only if I see that players care and will try to do their job and if they don't have some wierd loadouts. If you straight up refuse to listen to any advise and be a dumbass for no reason, I'm not gonna stay there, because what's the damn point of playing, if you know for sure that you will lose the match and not have any fun at all? And many won't communicate at all in any shape or form. What's the point in playing an online game, that is also heavily focused on teamwork and not even bother to make any kind of contact with other players? Some people are like dead. I don't even know if they are afk, did they hear me, did they read the chat, did they understand instructions, advise etc...

I think locking pilot class behind a requirement of at least 100 matches would be good idea. On top of that I would also give them another achievement as requirement.  Achievemement would be: Rebuild and repair 25 armors, 25 balloons and 25 engines. This way they would also learn how the hell to repair and not be useless and try to rebuild  armor with malet.

Other issue is also achieve hunting. Many players will buff entire ship and they'll keep buffing even when the ship is dying or enemy is in arcs and they should be shooting.  I've been in quite a few matches where captain was repeatedly asking buffer to get on the gun, but he was just buffing all day long. I think no one should recieve such  achievements like buffing till they hit level 15.

Another thing that should be done are improvements to ingame chat. It should be more clear what's crew chat (colored text) and how to use it (make it more visible so new  players can definetly see it). Same for voice chat. Right now it says "press, X, C or T to chat" (Y, Z for Voice chat). I made keybinds up because I forgot what are default  keys. But it's pretty confusing. Three different keys for the chat and what's for what? It's just not very clear.

[UndyingUndyne]

Personally, I think it would be a terrible idea to lock new players out of piloting until they reach a certain level or play so many matches. That's not to say I don't think novices piloting ships when they have no idea what they're doing is not a problem, but limiting the classes new players have access to would have drastic consequences.

I think back to when I first played the game. I bought the game wanting to be a pilot. Not running around whacking things with a Mallet or shooting other ships out of the sky, but standing behind the helm, flying the ship through the sky, and all the cool things I thought a pilot could do. Yeah, I was a complete scrub when I started. I thought putting the ship on full throttle would damage the engines, and I had no idea what good any of the helm tools were for me. But I eventually learned, and I guarantee I would not have stayed with this game if I saw I couldn't even be a pilot until I played several hundred matches.

Honestly, I feel the biggest problem that causes novice pilots to "ruin" games for longtime players is how high of a skill floor piloting has. The tutorials, quite frankly, don't give the detail needed to get a new guy to understand everything he or she is doing. Along with that, this game doesn't have the consistent player base needed to let novices play with each other and learn together. I know I was very fortunate when I first started because I started right after a bunch of Youtubers played the game. There were easily 3000+ players in the game, and Novice matches were plentiful. I was able to get the general idea of piloting and not "ruin" the game for the vets once I did hit level 8 piloting.

So no, requiring players to play hundreds of matches before they can even pilot is a terrible idea that would only further decrease the small player base this game has. What the Devs probably should do is make better tutorials and encourage more effective learning with Novices. Heck, even finding a way to keep the 3000+ new players that come by after a marketing blitz from abandoning the game could provide Novices more opportunities to learn with other players at their skill level would help as well.

(inb4 salty tryhards flame me for this post)

[HamsterIV]

Allowing novices to captain was necessary when this game first started, but there is a big enough player base that new players should be encouraged to cut their teeth under the watchful eyes of a vet. I like Jedi's proposal with the addendum that if there are less than 80 people on line or a wait time of over 5 minutes in match maker due to lack of pilots, novices should be allowed behind the helm.

I think the Alliance Co op will help with this assuming Muse includes Solo play. Most novices aren't outright trolls but lack the space to learn and practice. Novice matches were supposed to be that safe space, but they don't seem as viable now.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Keeping things locked and something noobs have to open is a good thing. Keeps them coming back. This also is a way they learn the game before they take the wheel. Really we don't put kids behind cars right away? Why put noobs on the wheel of airships?

[Renaulde]

I am fully against locking anything in this game, including the current system for it. I can understand and have been through the frustration with ally pilots not knowing anything about the game, nor communicating in any way. Same could be said for crew. Both make life in GoIO incredibly frustrating to get through, and I'm sure that this is one point that makes people not interested in this game over time.

My history in brief:
As a new player, like many, I joined with friends. There was one guy in particular that wanted to pilot, one that figured he'd only gun, and another guy that had a little bit of experience, so he engineered. I was very shy about even joining this game that sounded like it had such a high skill ceiling to break through, though eventually convinced myself engineering would work out since I wasn't new to games altogether. We did novice matches with the preset loadouts and generally had some fun just shooting things. None of us knew the mechanics beyond controls, so our games didn't generally go well either. I don't think I took the time to do the tutorials at the time because I was the last of my friends to join in, and they were looking to play immediately. We only had maybe two sessions of playing together before we stopped to do other games. I was the only one to stick around because I had a general interest in the gameplay and tactics. I wanted to know why we were failing and what I could do to improve my own skills.

Why I think locked content is a bad idea:
With my experience after my initial start, I started to like GoIO more and flew with good and bad pilots alike. Through the rest of my novice career I still didn't really know what was going on, but I learned quickly about some basic mechanics. Took some matches to try and pilot horribly too. What I wanted from the novice matches before I had inevitably cleared level...3 at the time? was to screw up as much as possible. To try things out for myself and see generally what worked and what didn't. I didn't really have the options in novice mode because of the locked ships and loadouts, and knew I wasn't going to be received well in standard matches. I had to learn how to shoot a hades much later. I didn't know the layout of a spire, or that a mobula was split into two distinct halves. It was pretty rough learning in a trial-by-fire method for these, though thankfully I didn't have a huge interest in piloting.

If I had the options of the rest of the ships and loadouts in novice mode, I feel that I could have gotten more from it. I feel that the current system for locked ships is useless since it can be turned off for normal matches anyways. There is no point to things being locked except for inside of novice lobbies. I like the idea of "recommended" loadouts, or even a "default" option added to the loadout list for when it's still uncertain what weapons do what, but experimentation is also needed. As for newer players, if they were to be locked out of piloting, I think lobbies would take even longer for them if there are people that are completely new, and if they joined with 3 other friends, someone would have to be on another ship altogether. That group would leave and want a refund. Sure it would force a basic understanding for the rest of the mechanics of the game, but it would also reduce the capability of people playing together from the get-go.

Possible other solutions:
The issue that I think would solve a number of problems would be more in-depth tutorials. Tutorials that go through almost a step-by-step process of the finer points of piloting, tool usage, ammo usage, gunning, stamina, engineering, and buffing. Where the current tutorials do an alright job at helping someone to understand about the damage types (namely piercing and explosive), it could be improved to where there wouldn't be a question about it. Freeze-frame certain instances and provide more information, such as where the armor breaks. Move the AI ship closer and further away to demonstrate the differences in arming times. Force the ammo to change from standard to greased to demonstrate bullet speed. Have an AI pilot to demonstrate a buffing tutorial. Have the pilot tutorial go through the different tools and in actual scenarios (include AI ships that rush the player, move up/down, etc...). Also include a scenario that has the player work with other AI ships to take down a fleet of the same size (to discourage solo rushing). This would be excellent to establish different tiers of tutorials for the basics and advanced mechanics.

One further step that could be taken is to prompt someone to take a tutorial in a class they have yet to use or do a tutorial in. Force them to select "Yes" or "No" to go through with it or not, but have a medal or cosmetic item be rewarded if they do go through the tutorial (either then or later).

Another option to consider would be a complete rework of the novice mode. It could require players to remain in novice status until a certain number of matches played and lock MMR to a certain amount during that time. Could also rework this idea into a fourth game mode (next to normal, novice, and veteran) that requires only a certain number of matches played, mic chat enabled, and a number of other features that promotes competitive play.

Other issues:
Whereas the more advanced tutorials could solve a lot of the issues in regards to experimentation and implementation of learned skills, the issue still remains that players just starting out will pilot in normal matches. Players just starting out will crew in normal matches. People that don't want to learn anything and just want to shoot stuff will be in normal matches. People that have mic chat turned off will be in normal matches. There is a vast number of problems that will appear in normal matches, and I don't believe a lot of them will be fixable unless the people are willing to go through the steps. One of those "you can lead a horse to water" proverbs.


Giving more options and places to experiment seems like the most viable solution to me in regards to this, because simply locking such an important feature out will prevent many players from doing what they want to do with this game. If they want to learn, they'll go out of their way to do it, but otherwise the more bull-headed will just keep racking up losses and frustration. I can't think of a way to change their mind unless there is some other reward to benefit cooperative play.

[TerrorDance]

I agree with the sentiment of this post. The problem is new players joining in with seasoned pros in matches that are neither competitive nor instructive. I agree with Doctor Renaulde that locking any players out of any integral part of the game is the wrong way to look at it. His solution of a tutorial is probably the best one, but to be fully realized, GoIO will have to be reimagined with a single-player campaign which serves as both a game in-and-of itself for many, and the introduction to online combat which is necessary for competitive online play to prosper.

[Hoja Lateralus]

And I have bad news for you.

When you encounter such a person you should report that person for being uncooperative. You should also ask everyone around to do the same.
Just don't expect any results.

This. Just give us the votekick already and be done with it. You gave us veteran matches, you gave us rematch vote, you gave us (limited) server browser, THIS IS THE NEXT THING. JUST.... DO IT! DOOOO IIIIIIIT!



(actualy consider it, all the things I mentioned had "oh, this thing? no way, not doing this, never" label for a while and is kicking out someone that, for instance, 80-90% of lobby wants out, really bad?)

But yeah, my brother used to say sth like: "How they even wonder why GOIO is the den of pathology, since the only way to get rid of uncommunicative player is interrupting his game, forcing him to leave". This or "mercenary death squadrons"* anyway.

This may sound bad, but I'd really like a way to mark uncommunicative/unwilling player, sth like clan or community block/blacklist. Just warning others "hey, this player is shit, he'll ruin your game mate" but in form of community institution.

I think concerns about blocking out content are very valid, especially given 4-pack buyers that wouldn't be able to fly together (or would figure out they can, just not in a novice lobby, making problem even worse). To make 'some' requirements but not as harsh, perhaps only people who would've done 'all' tutorials could pilot? Or very small match count, like 25?** Just an idea. Also, we all agree that better tutorials would be nice, but talking about how tutorials should look like (with scenarios and shit) knowing more or less what resources Muse has is, for me, just wishful thinking.

Also, we know that novice cap is way too low and raising it a bit could help.

Another thing that should be done are improvements to ingame chat. It should be more clear what's crew chat (colored text) and how to use it (make it more visible so new  players can definetly see it). Same for voice chat. Right now it says "press, X, C or T to chat" (Y, Z for Voice chat). I made keybinds up because I forgot what are default  keys. But it's pretty confusing. Three different keys for the chat and what's for what? It's just not very clear.

In Alliance you at least have an indicator which voice chat are people using, with different colours (so you see coloured box with nick on it and text like Party/Crew/Captain, which is OH MY GOD SO BEAUTIFUL I WANT IT IN SKIRMNISH NAU NO TIME FOR INTERPUNCTION.
Also, come on, those buttons are next to each other on the keyboard. Text chat j,k,l and voice chat is (z), x, c. You'd rather want P for Party, C for Crew and T for Team or sth like that?


* adding the bastard to the friend list and join every game he show up to and blow him up, or at least go into his ship and troll the shit out of him

** I know that 100 matches is threshold of pain, but it is 'some' compromise giving that blocking content is generally mostly bad