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My (Long)Open Letter to Muse

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Narayan:
Dear Muse,

So I talked about some of the stuff that's really annoying me, and I think some of my concerns do represent a border silent majority in the community, however this what i believe are the causes and the solutions they only represents my opinions. Thats being said I want to tell the Dev's how I became a high level pilot in this game, in the hopes that it wall make them understand whats right with the game, and hopefully make them understand what I see that is wrong with it that they arent fixing.

So when i came back to guns in 2014 and after floundering as a gunner for a while, I discovered the meta pyra, and after a few bad lobbies decided i couldn't be any worse of a pilot than the incompetent people around me. It turns out I was wrong, after a little initial success I developed a suck that lasted all the way into my late teens of captain level, but eventually I did get good. The matches I played back then were unique, because with around 500-600 players on I would play about 50 percent of my matches with noobs who were clueless like me, and the other half with vets who would give me tips about loadouts and piloting, while they were beating the pants off of me.

It turns out that mix was just right, I would lose matches to the vets, but the lessons I learned I could take into the more care free and stress free lower level lobbies to play with people at my skill level. Those lessons applied there allowed me to start winning and experimenting and I continued to get better and better. As I did I started to make friends who wanted to crew on my ship, people that were my level, but we were all going up together. Thats where I learned how important crew was, and the people I continued to play with were becoming key to my wins, because they could keep up with damage, and were well drilled with gat mortar and didnt fire at the wrong time. Once in my 20s I joined a clan and that carried me all the way to lvl 45 in a very vibrant game full of people, with about 20 or so active large clans at the time.

I couldnt become the same kind of pilot i am today if I was just starting out. I couldnt because the game has changed, It has a major problem and thats what I want to talk to you guys about. We see this problem in every aspect of the games core systems, the matchmaker, lobbies, trolls, and we fail to address it. Im going to give you my opinions on how to change the downward spiral, and how to treat not only the disease but the symptoms. I hope that you guys will read this and take it seriously, because I take this game seriously enough to write a super long post.


So what is the disease?

Put plain and simply, population. Players are the lubrication that keeps this game running smoothly without it you start to see friction like we do today. I know a lot of the complaining about vote kick wanst so urgent a few years ago, and I can honestly say the community was more friendly and less toxic. The reason in my mind for all the change is the loss of players, and the effect is huge on the game, once the number drops below 200 we start to see stress on the games systems, once it goes below 100 players online the games systems start to break down. Population is unfortunately is one of those things that feeds on it self, sometimes you can get lower pop just because you have lower pop, and I have observed during periods of high population some players will return to check the game out. Whatever the cause is and Im not going to go into here, the most simple and straiforward solution for fixing this game is just to increase the population. Here is what populations effects in my mind:

1.Matchmaker 

Low population means trouble finding matches that's plain and simple


2. Lobby Balance

Low population unfortunately leads to new players interacting with vets in their lobbys, and the new players get unevenly distributed.  What happens is you get a lot of 2 v 1 games, that is 2 vets on one side and 1 vet on the other with a noob ally. These matches suck, and a lot of time no matter what the other team does to balance things out you really can never win these, and they are just very frustrating to play.


3. Trolls

This kinda goes back to hard to find games, when there are only 3-5 lobbies as is the case now that the populations is dipping back down, reforming or leaving the lobby isnt really an option. The troll will be forced back to the match list and chances are he will end up back in your game. Trolls also can be created inadvertently from interaction with vets, who they see as talking down to them, this again goes back to vets and noobs mixing.


4. Ability of players to learn the game

As I said before my leveling up I never really needed a CA, because there were always people for me to play with in an environment that was at my skill level where I could actually learn. This is extremely important. Anecdotally one of the things I hear about this game from new players who didnt like it is they seemed to enjoy the newbie lobbies the most. They like the chaos in the disorganization of it compared to a meta pyra killing them in under 5 seconds. I think this sort of falls under the category of let kids be kids, but its important to remember we need a shallow end of the pool for people to get into, and we cant provide that with a population lower than about 500-600 people.


5. Toxicity

A lot of this games flavor and lack of repetition comes from playing with and playing against different people with different play styles. Once you start removing population you start removing variety from the game. The truth is not all of us get along, unfortunate as that is, and players I might avoid in a larger population im forced to play with in a lower population. Also trashing the same players over and over again, and getting trashed in return gets old.  You guys made a hell of a team game, its so good that one player thats an engineer on another ship not pulling his weight can cause me to lose the match. When everyone stepping up and doing their part is so important, when giving something your all and still losing just because you got the new guy on your team and they didnt, it can be a frustrating experience, and thats not even with a troll. What gets even older is losing a match because you had some troll on your ship who wouldnt take your loadout, or a low level ally who went merc mine launcher, and swore he knew what he was doing because hes a smurf. Lets just call it friction, and say the experience of losing despite your best efforts, in what isnt a fair match causes some issues with players, and that friction builds up the lower the pop gets.


So whats the Cure?

So now that Ive said that, finding the answer in the end is up to you. I can give you my suggestion for fixing it and thats free to play. We need a massive influx of players, thousands of players if we can, and the only way I can think of to get that many bodies is to make the game, and by the game i mean base guns of icarus skirmish mode, free. I know there are some reservations

1. The money

From a fiscal point of view I can see how you might no think this is a good idea, however if we eliminate costumes for all but certain community achievements that encourage good play (ie underdog, teaching, tutorials, ect) then we could make it to where all paints and dyes have to be bought. Ive seen you sell the game pretty close to 1 dollar, Im sure that you can wring a dollar out of a lot of people thru the costume shop. Also all of these new players, who would have never bought guns of icarus for even 1 dollar, are now all of the sudden candidates to buy alliance. Once they've been exposed to skirmish they will be much more likely to buy alliance than if they had never played at all, so you are in effect increasing your sales pool for the alliance, with a group of people you would have never had access too.


2. The Trolls

This is one the vets are scared of, but not me. We already have a huge troll problem in this game, and the average guns of icarus troll already has the advantage of free to play in the sense that a smurf account is free to create. All you have to do is create a free steam account log into it and family share, bam youre a new player. If we could put systems in place like vote kick in the lobbies that would alleviate some of this, and it would be much easier to find a lobby if we were back up to 1k players, so if you did want to reform you could. The truth is not all of these players would be bad trolls, and fairly soon we would all be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. The good ones would be added to our friends lists invited into our clans, and our lobbies. The bad ones would go on our block lists, be vote kicked from our lobbies, and probably quit playing the game.


Again its your game and its really up to you to figure out how to get more people, however this in my mind is the reason for the continuing decline of the game, and the spirits of those who play it. Take my advice or dont, but I hope you do. In the mean time we can try to address the symptoms of a low population.



Symptoms and the treatment


Vote kick and trolls


We need vote kick, we neeeeeed it. The troll situation is horrible. One guy can come in and ruin a lobby and a match, and many of us just wont play it, and it kills the lobby, or puts the noobs in a bad stack with a troll. Unfortunately with game population so low you cant just reform every time you get a troll, you might not fill your new lobby, and even worse the troll might just follow you in there. The report feature in my mind at least when it comes to trolls is just a placebo, something to make me feel better that doesnt actually do anything and I have given up on it.

One important thing to remember about lobbies is they dont last foverver, they do die, and a lot of things can kill them. Anything that causes people to log off is a bad thing for a lobby.  Losing too many matches in a row, extremely long lobby times, and even reforming can kill a lobby. People might just look at the clock and say hey im gonna stop here or go do something else, and a troll can be the catalyst for that. So with that said here is how a vote kick system in the game would look like to me.

-Vote kick ability is given to lvl 45s only

Initially I think this is the best option, I know a lot of people are worried about abuse especially at muse, and I know a lot of the concern for that abuse is from high level players, but I dont think thats going to be the case and here is why

A. Lvl 45's are basically CA's like it our not. Every level 45 has spent a lot of time teaching new players, be it dont take spyglass as a pilot, use a gat mortar instead of 2 mortars, shoot at hull and not balloon with the gat. All level 45's are teachers in some respect. We are all also part of the community, and generally have friends and social connections that keep us in the game, and that would tend to dissuade most lvl 45's from abusing their power.

B. Lvl 45's can be held to account. If someone random join the game and abuses vote kick and gets banned, he could care less, he has nothing invested in the account and he can just go smurf or something else. A lvl45 on the other hand has costumes and achievements to loose, and as a result will be very likely not to abuse vote kick, as their account is very important to them.

C. I dont see a situation where vets will gang up on noobs to kick them off ships, mostly because ive never been in a lobby where every vet hated a noob, and wouldnt try to help them. A lot of us will go thru phases where we dont want to be around new players, however someone in that lobby will report you for acting like a jerk if you abuse vote kick.


So how would the mechanics work?

Basically a vote kick could be initiated by a level 45 and it would be a team only vote, the passing threshold would be at 50 percent. This would mean that if i had 3 guys on my ship and wanted to clear a spot for my buddy who is in spectate someone on the other ship would have to vote yes. Which would I hope make it less likely to succeed. However 50 percent is also low enough that a kick could succeed with afk players in the lobby, which often happens. I believe strongly vote kick should be a team only vote, as it is an issue that effects only that team. After the kick is successful the player would hopefully get a 5 min ban from the lobby.

I think this implementation of vote kick would be enough to seriously allow consideration of free to play, the mechanics would also be a reward for lvl 45 players, and would still be in the hands of people who could be held accountable, thru a ban if necessary. Also it would significantly cut down on the amount of reports you have to read, if you even do read them because players would have some ability to self police.


Narayan:
CA's and new player training

This is an area where i think muse has fallen really short, and if for no other reason than appearance. The CA corps when I found out about it appeared to me to be a social club, that was there for its own exclusivity. The methods of selection CA's in my mind, and I was rejected, seemed to hinge more on personality and connections, than actual knowledge of the game or willing to work with new players. Now a while later I see that all of these people who loved and were so important in the game dont even play anymore, and yet they are still retained for life, as if its some sort of court appointment.

The CA's like a good clan need to be pruned and recruited. Inactive CA's need to be pruned, and new CA's should be selected, and by that I mean actively recruited, instead of fill out an application and well call you. Mods and current CA's, you know who the people are that work well with new players and dont ask for a snapchat invite(jedi joke). Go out there, talk to these people get them interested, recruit them like you want them to join your clan, because that will make them excited to help out. The CA's and mods should be a living organization just like the game, they should be active players who are part of the community, and if they arent they should be removed, with the understanding they can always come back when they start playing again.

However as it stands we dont have enough active CA's in my mind and if the game population ever took off we couldn't get enough, and thats why we need to automate more parts of training. My first suggestion would be to change the way we unlock and design ships. Right now you have a novice lock on until you reach a certain level, and thats ok but other games have already established unlocks related to weapons like call of duty, and  we could use a system like this to grant players ships and weapons based on level.

1  Ship:Pyramidion Weapons:Gatling, banshee

The logic here is that no player can screw this up, even double gat or double banshee would still kill someone.

4  Weapons: Mercury, Artemis

8  Ship:Junker  Weapons: Mortar, light flak

10 Weapons:Flamer, Light Caro

12 Ship:Goldfish Weapons: Heavy Caro, Hwatcha

14 Ship:Galleon Weapons:Hades, Mine Launcher

16 Ship:Mobula Weapons:Flare

18 Ship:Spire Weapons:Harpoon, Lumberjack

20 Ship:Squid Weapons:All others

These ships would be unlocked by reaching the stated level number in any class, even if its gunner or engineer, with the understanding that having reached that level you have a basic grasp on the concepts needed to use them, ie when and what to use. Also we should create more of a wizard in the UI so that if someone selects a weapon, when they go to fill the next slot they get a recommended highlight on the weapons that go with it. IE gat slot 1 on a pyra is your choice, when you click on slot 2 it will say recommended next to mortar and banshee for instance. Implementing this system will hopefully allow us to not see some of the crazy loadouts we see when we have a noob ally.

The other great effect is it removes friction from vets an noobs. Noobs wont be able to fly merc squid their first match and annoying their co captian. Also the vet players wont be placed in the awkward position of having to ask a noob to change their ship. Which is something ive seen go both well and horrible. Some new players just dont like being told what to do regardless of what your level is, they just wanna have and ive heard this often "fun". Unfortunately they dont realize its not a fun things for us vets to have a worthless ally.

Without costume unlocks tied to level this will give new players a carrot to chase, and by the time someone reaches level 20 they wont need the carrot anymore they will stay for the game. They will have made friends probably joined a clan and have a lot of reasons to stick around.

Lobby balance

So this ones easy, you arent going to fix it and give up. I know it sounds horrible, but people will do anything to play with their friends, swap slot from spectate, join off friends you name it. So what you should do here is just remove all the restrictions you put in place cause people just getting around them, and it really only serves as an inconvenience, so actually youd make everyone's life nicer if you just took that out.

What you can do is make the underdog tag more prominent in the lobby again so people know what side the underdog team is, and keep the underdog achievements because people actually do like to grind those and thats the biggest motivator to be stacked against in my mind.


Disable mid match joins


The major issue with the easy match list is that when I click ready and start a game I have a plan based on the crew I'm starting with. If I have 2 ai then my ship is planned around that, I'll probably take a Goldie or double gat pyra. The same goes if I have a full crew, if I look at my full crew before the match starts I'm going to take into account player level and experience when I make a decision about who will be gunner or who will be main engineer. I will assign a loadout including the appropriate ammo to each person make sure my ship is properly equipped and so is my crew then click ready and start the match.

In the good old days when I had 2 ai on my crew the only way I would get a mid match join is if someone on my friends lists wanted to join, or someone had a friend in the lobby and wanted to join. That meant I was usually going to get a mid to high level player, who at the very least would join as an engineer with standard kit, and probably look at my guns and bring the right ammo type. At best they will send me a pm saying something to the effect of I'm going to join standard kit would you rather I bring buff?

So this causes problems for 2 reasons, first I've been getting a lot of 2nd gunners mid match, or I'll get low level engies joining with chem extinguisher and mallet or something crazy. The 2nd is I might have accepted playing against an opponent who is high level with the expectation of having ai who's abilities in familiar with and then mid match I get one or two low level players that if they joined before the match had stated would have made me re evaluate the ship I was taking at the very least or abandon the match or ask for a ship swap at the most. This has been a quite frustrating experience as of late.



I know this is a fairly long post, and if youve stuck it all the way thru bravo. Muse I hope you really consider these suggestions with an open mind as they are the only thing I can see that can fix a lot of the issues we are having. I challenge all of you at muse to come play some matches with me. See what its like to feel the stress of trying to teach a new player at the same time you are going against a vet stack, come play a 2 v 1 and see how it feels. Come on a smurf account so that you can get trolled. Try starting the match with open slots and see what randoms join your ship, and how that effects your game and the plan you hard going in. You can send me a PM with your steam details and I will add you, and we can set up some matches. I sincerely hope you guys can turn this around and remember the most important point ive made here which is we need more people, more than anything else thats the only thing that will fix this game.


Regards,
Narayan

 

Solidusbucket:
I stopped reading cause it was really long.

ALLIANCE

I posted my alliance rant before this one (same time maybe) kinda funny how close the two posts were TBH. I just read this after my post.

ALLIANCE FTW.

If not, then awell. Ill continue to play with the same people until we all get hit by a bus or move to a dif game.

edit: i paid 5 dollars for this game.

Unarmed Civilian:
This is really long, so I'll try to summarize it. Yell at me if I summarized it bad and I'll edit it later.

TL;DR:

* Before you could learn new tactics from playing (and losing) against veteran players, and practice them against equals. Now: more separation between newbie and vet. Harder to learn and progress.

* Low population is big problem. Results in slower matchmaking, more unfair matchups (e.g. 2 vets vs 1 and newbie), trolls being harder to avoid, steeper learning curve, and toxicity from difficulty finding matches with people you don't want to play with or against again.
Cure: maybe f2p, need more players

* Money if f2p: eliminate cosmetic rewards except costumes for certain community achievements encouraging good play. Dyes and paints only obtained through purchase

* Trolls: People can already create as many free accounts as they want via steam family sharing. Consider vote kick for really bad trolls.
Vote kick:

* A single guy can ruin an entire lobby on his own. Game population is too low to just find another match easily. Report does nothing effective.  Trolls can kill lobbies due to people being frustrated. The leaving people often then just stop playing for the night.

* Give level 45s ability to initiate votekick. Vote is team-side only, 50% majority. Level 45s often do a lot of teaching and sometimes take the place of CAs. Level 45s also have something to lose if they abuse it and get banned. Gives 5 minute lobby ban or something similar.
CAs:

* CA seems to be more of a club, with getting in more about personality and connections. Most of them don't even play anymore. Should be pruned and recruited like a clan. Inactive CAs get booted, new CAs actively recruited.
Unlock system:

* Not enough CAs active for training, low game pop or not. Automate it more. Change unlock system for ships and guns. Make it so leveling up gives access to more ships weapons. Simplest and more generalist weapons/ships first, complex and specialist weapons/ships last.Lobby Balance:

* Remove the lobby balance features. They don't work in practice and just inconveniences people. People will want to play with friends first and foremost and will use any workaround they can.

* However make underdog tag more prominent.
Disable mid match joins:

* Having AI in lobby heavily influences ship choice due to what ships AI work well on. Having actual crew heavily influences ship choice based on crew's experience, with loadouts carefully chosen.

* Mid-match joins throws that preparation out the window. People join as gunner #2. People join with chem-extinguisher-mallet. Preparing when expecting to work with poor yet predictable AI then getting unpredictable randoms thrown in after the match already started is frustrating.

Unarmed Civilian:
Overall I agree. Low player population is causing a lot of problems, and those problems are getting worse as it gets lower. Considering how they sold the game itself for chips many times already, F2P with the proposed system might not be terrible.

Raise the price of black dye and paint though. Add lime green paint at the same price if you're evil.

The unlock system proposed is straight up better than the one new pilots currently have. It allows them to still experiment with gun loadouts while remaining restricted from advanced, situational , and "exotic" loadouts like harpoon Mob, harpoon Squid, why do all the newbies have harpoons why. It gives them more of a feeling of what piloting in guns of icarus is about, and lets them try suggested loadouts by more experienced players sooner without the temptation of the inevitable Galleon of Fail.

The CA system mentioned seems more logical.

I agree with removing lobby balance restrictions. They never stopped me, only annoyed me.

Removing mid-match joins seems like a good idea to me. Make it so you can only join mid-match by invite from the pilot/captain. People who want in can PM the captain and may get an invite in response. Certainly better than a level 1 jumping into the middle of a vet's ship and single-handedly losing the match simply by not being experienced enough to know what to do learn everything he needs to do instantly. You can't expect the pilot to teach someone who joined both unexpectedly and uninvited.

The votekick system proposed here seems good. It encourages not abusing it (for fear of a ban on a valuable account) and gives the ability to initiate it to the people who would both need it and want to use it most. At the same time it prevents the 45 from just shutting people out because it still needs a majority vote, and anyone who's experienced votekicks in other games knows how hard it can be to get it at times, even for good reasons.

Please add votekick. TF2 didn't have it for a week and things went to hell in a handbasket. Is a small amount of votekick abuse worth having many frustrated players just get up and leave due to inability to deal with trolls and uncooperative players? A lot of people left TF2 temporarily while votekick wasn't around, and came back when it was reintroduced.

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