Training Days - What now?

[Kyren]

Ahoy!

I can only speaking for the EU Training Days here, I hope that Shinkurex has come to more positive conclusions

We're having the event since a bit more than 2 months and while we were always well received, we didn't really receive a lot of newbies. Sure, occasional players who wanted to go captain for the first time, some newbies who were just around when we started, but we didn't really get swamped with new players who just logged in for the Training Events. Our Steam group had some influx in the beginning, but now it's also rather dull.

Our chances of catching new players with the event (including minimum 3-4 veterans every time who are there for teaching) are the same as one person starting a Beginners Lobby during the day or asking if any new players want to get schooled. About the same success, but with much more resource and effort put behind.

So.. we obviously need to get more efficient. I can't think of a wide range of things to improve, but 2 things struck my mind:

It's called Training Day, yet we're having a single Match, about 2 hours. Why not make it a full Training Day? In my experience, on a regular Wednesday during CET-afternoons there are enough CAs online to maintain a constant Beginner's Lobby. Sometimes during Training Days we've had more CAs in other Matches than in our Training Lobby, I believe we'd have the manpower for this. (And that with only calculating the should-be-trainers). If we count in all the experienced players who helped out without being CAs, we could have ran two 3v3 lobbies at the same time.

So.. how about dedicating a whole afternoon + evening to maintaining a constant Training Game? It would allow for many more players to jump in and get trained or to help out with training others. Something along 4-5 PM CET to 10 PM CET?

Second, our advertising has always been a mess. Sure, we've had our "Event starting now" popping up in the Steam Groups, sometimes also some coverage on the forums, and also calling it out to people in the Regional chat ingame at times. Most people, especially the new ones, will not be in the Steam group nor in the forum. They'll by chance see the advertisment ingame and then come again, but that chance isn't high. We seriously need a announcement board in the main menu to inform people about Training Days and other Community Events. I guess we'd get swamped with people wanting to learn if there was a text in the main Menu saying "Wednesday Training Day, join up for this and that at that time".

And now I'd like to hear some more thoughts and ideas about how to improve our Training Days!

[Piemanlives]

I quite like the idea of a message board, multi purpose and it can get the message you want out there as well as being visible enough for people to spot it.

[Shinkurex]

haha well funnily enough, I was talking to Skrim about the state of Training days this morning. Unfortunately, I was supposed to post something about it, and then work got the best of me ...... We definitely think that beginner matches are going to be the best way to keep to only "beginners" and not have high lvl players suddenly drop in. Do not worry those who are not CAs, we can get you the ability to enter these matches (I'll have a post for signups up sometime soon)... These beginner matches should be 2v2. I would really like to see a full day of training with swapping out trainers.... problem with that, is that it'd be a beast to organize.... To address the advertisement issue. I agree fully with needing more. What can we do now (with no news board) to assist with this? I'm open to suggestions

[DMaximus]

Could you get Muse to post something on that News thing that's on the game's main screen for the duration of the training session?

[Ataris]

Thanks for bringing this up, Kyren, I had similar worries for rather long period of time. Was too busy however for trying to take any actions on this case.

Well, I've already talked to Skrim about the idea of moving the Training days into beguinners lobbies. Since 1.2 CAs are able to enter lowlvl matches, so we can finally find a use for this power. The only obstacle here is the fact that we would not be able to attract non-CA substitutes in emergency case. So this may (or may not) drastically cut out pool of trainers.
On the other hand, much more new players will have a chance to join a spare slot. Moreover these matches wouldn't be too harsh for newbies in comparison to others when too skilled players are sitting on gatflak or lumberjack.
Weighting profits and losses I think we should try it...if you agree to try, of course.

Allowing Training day to be on a full day run seems to be an interesting idea, really. All of you will agree, however, that teaching is not an easy job, so I doubt if we'll find much volunteers to run it for hours every week. Especially keeping in mind the time difference, jobs, studies and so on (I won't be able to help at earlier time, for example).
But to repeat, the idea is interesting, and it would be GREAT if we could realize it at least for month or two.

And advertising...yeah, it really sucks. Steam and forum usually bring 1-2 players to the event, very far to count it effective. Promoting even an hour before the event usually allow to attract more.
In this case, an idea to add an ingame schedule board with a few words on every event, date and time, contact info and etc. seems to be a billon times worthy. Not only for Training but for every event running within Guns of Icarus Online. I guess we can also pull in some of Muse (probably Morbie) to coordinate it's filling, moderating, well, everything to keep it updated and regulated.
It could be also autocopied to the forum for further convenience.

Yeah, the more i think about the last, the more i decide that we NEED it. I hope someone will make a thread on this case, it's too late for me now, but i still can make it tomorrow if you want to pull me to front

[Kyren]

I'll get to posting an idea about the notice board now, and once we've got some replies there (you won't forget about showing your support for it, will you? ), I'll also dispatch a mail to Muse about it. Maybe we can get something simple added in in 1.3. There's already a very tiny news field in the Main Menu now, so "we'd only need to expand this".

If we could get this Announcement board along with 1.3.. then we could ideally try a full Training Day in the week that 1.3 comes out. There'd naturally be many more people online and thus seeing our cool Training Day announcement. It could work out quite well, we'd have a bigger playerbase to take Trainers from and to take Newbies from to Train during that first "extended session."

Let's see how our possibilities are for getting the board soon, and then check if we're up for doing a extended Training Day.

[Skrimskraw]

well as a matter of fact I have been talking with skrim about some of these things.

Keyvias told me that he can give non-ca players the power of joining beginners matches, so if we can find people  who are willing, we can get them in.

[Clara Skyborn]

I'm going to add a permanent item promoting the Training Days group to the sidebar of the newsletter, which should give you a little more visibility and publicity.

We do have a "Teacher" status which we can grant to players to allow them to enter beginner matches above level 3. I'll be sharing some info on how to get this shortly.

Our news board has been changed in the new UI to a scrolling news ticker. Talk to Keyvias, he can add in Training Day announcements for you when events are happening.

[Skrimskraw]

also:

from now on we will use 2v2, 3v3 has shown to be chaotic.

I suggest that we no longer call our matches EU or US it creates confusion.

I also suggest we change the names to "new player training session", training day is not only confusing due to us only being able to be there for 2-3 hours, but training day seems misinformative in general.

as for EU guys are you up for starting at 7pm CET instead?
My workshift has been changed to thursday mornings (6am), so I have to split around 10pm.

[Clara Skyborn]

Btw, I snagged the Tutorial achievement icon to advertise Training Days on the newsletter, since you didn't have a very distinctive image on the Steam group. Feel free to borrow it.

[Shinkurex]

Btw, I snagged the Tutorial achievement icon to advertise Training Days on the newsletter, since you didn't have a very distinctive image on the Steam group. Feel free to borrow it.

Thanks! borrowed and used

[Clara Skyborn]

Is the name change official, then?

Also, do your matches have a standard naming pattern so players can look for them?

[Shinkurex]

I've not talked to skrim about the name change tbh... the reason why I choose "Training Day" was because it sounded a bit nicer... I'm open to other suggestions, but "new player training session" is a mouthful.... :\

[Skrimskraw]

im not talking about changing the name.
I mean when we create the lobbies, eu training day confuses us players, thinking they cant participate.

[Shinkurex]

Ah well that I do agree with... could just call the lobby "Training" tbh