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1

Community Events / Re: Sunday Community Skirmish #217 "Old dogs can't learn new tricks!"

« on: August 26, 2018, 12:20:46 pm »

Falling Haz. signing up.
Gentleman Marauder & WATERitsME

compleat & WATERitsME

2

General Discussion / Re: My renewed argument for Free to play

« on: May 08, 2017, 01:20:53 pm »

I think each sale has shown that new players will come in droves at the right price point.

You would expect a similar influx with Free to play.

But I also think that this influx of new players will dwindle down to nothing again, just as it has after every sale.

Clearly player retention is the real problem.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Re: I am begging, please add minimum level requirements to pilot...

« on: January 07, 2016, 09:13:45 am »

there it is again. That social stigma that vets  are just conscripted teachers.

No. You play the game or you leave. Its the fact that they don't PLAY the game is exactly why people leave. I refuse to hold baby's lil hands and make him feel like a special little flower. No. You play the game like you're meant to play.

You play or you lose. You learn by going by how the veteran tells you to play and then guess what happens. That hwacha suddenly completely disables the enemy ship. You get that hull break from that side gat and you get that kill shot from that 2nd hwacha volley on your fish.

I will teach those who I feel have the potential to be excellent players and those that aren't are just training dummies to my recruits. I've been around novices and memorised every noob excuse to know which are the type to nurture, BUT I SHOULD NOT HAVE THE OBLIGATION/EXPECTATION to do so.

Non sequitur?  Only a veteran can teach you how to kill with a goldfish, but veterans shouldn't have to teach....

This is a hard game to learn.  If you do the whole tutorial, you come out as a level 5 engineer.  So few do that, and those that do still don't know how to kill with goldfish; or know the gun/damage combinations, or effective repair patterns, or any of the other tricks that you can only get by some veteran sharing that information with you.

And these little bits of information stack and seem to have multiplicative effects.  If a player learns a couple of these tricks, then all of sudden they can win against the novices.  Which feels immensely gratifying, especially after the hour long grinds of preserverance that they endured in novice only matches.  When they learn that knowledge wins games, they stack lobbies and play lots of stomp matches.

I think this is also why veteran matches have not become more of thing.  People finally reach veteran level, feel good because they can crush the regular players, but end up getting totally stomped by a full lobby of triple 45's.  That's either because they are still missing some more critical bits that only other veterans can give, or they rediscover how hard the game still is when played against other players who also know what they are doing; (or at least know the same tricks as you).  (And I'll be the first to admit that I'm still learning how to play this game).

This game gets known for its awesome community.  And the community fights hard to preserve that.  I think the teaching element is a fundamental part of that.  Because, let's face it, it's currently the only way to make the game better for everyone.