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.
