Concerning Player Retention and Realism

[Queso]

In my opinion, it shouldn't be the responsibility of the players to rate and manage everyone else's ratings. Players are inconsistent at best at accurately rating other players. If people don't participate, the system doesn't work. You can't realistically expect people to do work outside of playing the game.

[Dutch Vanya]

Why do people (and muse) want player ratings anyway? Seems out of place in this game to me.

[HamsterIV]

I like Redria's suggestion of one and only one commendation per match. If you are with a crew you really like, they will stick with you for more than 3 matches, and you can commend all of them. Otherwise give props to those who did well. If your team sucked give the commendation to some one on the other team, because they earned it more than the slackers on your side.

[Schwerbelastung]

In my opinion, it shouldn't be the responsibility of the players to rate and manage everyone else's ratings. Players are inconsistent at best at accurately rating other players. If people don't participate, the system doesn't work. You can't realistically expect people to do work outside of playing the game.

Can you please clarify what you mean by having players rate and manage everyone else's ratings?

I believe what has so far been suggested here are mainly an improvement to the commendation system, and an automated (as in, not the responsibility of the other players) system that would calculate some key statistics (did you mean this by ratings?), which people could use to see their relative performance.

[Omniraptor]

OP wrote about UI and general quality of life in mobas and compared them to GOI, concluding that mobas are more polished, documented and accessible to noobs (the game itself, not its community). The gist is that mobas spell out their mechanics a lot more explicitly via spell/item descriptions, whereas in GOI it's often hard to tell what's going on- is my gun doing damage? why can't I turn? why are the hit indicators suddenly red? Inexplicable hit indicators can be solved trivially with a tutorial, already being worked on.


We also discuss how to make the game more accessible/enjoyable by rewarding the player with visual or audio cues when they do especially well or poorly. When there isn't enough feedback it's commonly reffered to as http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AWinnerIsYou

Existing examples of good feedback include the pretty explosion when you destroy hull armor, the pretty twirling bits when you get a kill, or the dramatic pose when you win. An example of abd feedback is the red haze over your vision when your have low armor and perma.

One thing that needs work is not enough visual feedback when destroying a gun or engine. It just starts idly smoking when it breaks, but to emphasize the moment there should a small explosion or a puff of smoke.

There are also meta-gamey rewards like achievement popups and increasing your class level. I don't like them because they promote grinding and sub-optimal play, but I understand, some people want an artificial carrot on a stick to stay involved because they don't find the core game enough fun in itself.

So, why do I dislike the reward of numbers at the end of a game? Because GOI is very social, more so than mobas- you're all literally in the same boat instead of scattered across the map. The numbers shed some light on how you did, and you get a warm fuzzy feeling if they're especially high, but imo you get a MUCH warmer fuzzier feeling when your teammates tell you 'good job!'. That's why I think a more sophisticated commendation system would be better than automated stat displays.

Also (this is more subjective) because precise stat displays kind of clash with the general steampunky cobbled-together aesthetic feel of GOI- the game feels more analog than digital. Notice how there aren't any numbers on the screen where you're playing? (recent addition of rangefinder excepted). It would be much easier code-wise just to provide your altitude as a number on a HUD, but for the sake of aesthetics muse implemented an analog altimeter on the helm. There are other examples like this.

So, I think it would also be aesthetically better if the post-game rewards were human/analog/commendation rather than computer/digital/stat display. If GOI were about spaceships I would probably be saying the opposite.

Of course implementing both systems would be best, but if I had to pick one it would definitely be human-given commendations.


Another idea- when giving a commendation, you should be able to type a note. Then those notes could be displayed on your profile page! and you would be able to sort/rearrange them so your favorite notes are on top! It would be so awesome


p.s. remember that both systems I talk about have NOTHING AT ALL to do with matchmaking. Matchmaking stats will be hidden https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,3566.msg62798.html#msg62798

[Queso]

In my opinion, it shouldn't be the responsibility of the players to rate and manage everyone else's ratings. Players are inconsistent at best at accurately rating other players. If people don't participate, the system doesn't work. You can't realistically expect people to do work outside of playing the game.

Can you please clarify what you mean by having players rate and manage everyone else's ratings?

I believe what has so far been suggested here are mainly an improvement to the commendation system, and an automated (as in, not the responsibility of the other players) system that would calculate some key statistics (did you mean this by ratings?), which people could use to see their relative performance.

I was saying that relying on a rating system is bad way to determine how to match players of near equal skill. Far too many factors that are not skill related are in play when you give the job to other humans, rather than by a system looking at actual performance statistics. While it may be helpful for something like teamwork which a system would have difficulty measuring, it would be bad to use for most matchmaking parameters.

I'm not saying a better commend system wouldn't be nice for other reasons, but it should never player the main role in determining good matches.

[Omniraptor]

Queso, please read the thread before replying. Matchmaking ratings are handled by muse, SECRETLY. The only thing you can do to influence your matchmaking rating is win games or lose games against players with compatible ratings. What happens in the actual game is irrelevant and SHOULD be, because it's impossible to quantify and rate someone's GOI performance algorithmically, while player feedback is unreliable.

The point is, we're not talking about possible mechanics to help people pair up into even games, muse has already (sort of) implemented those. We're talking about mechanics that make players feel more proud of their victories so they don't quit the game because it feels dull.

 I feel player-contributed 'congrats' feel more rewarding than rows of numbers, and I explained why two posts earlier.

[-Mad Maverick-]

I'm actually proposing that a better commendation system could do both; act as a more accurate rating system for MM purposes AND make people feel more engaged

[-Mad Maverick-]

in addition to whatever automated stat tracking will be done (and should be on display)

[Schwerbelastung]

I feel player-contributed 'congrats' feel more rewarding than rows of numbers, and I explained why two posts earlier.

No time for a longer post now, so I'll just comment on this shortly;

I feel the same way. Proper commendations, in DOTA and in other games as well, are more rewarding. The problem is that if the commendations are meaningful, people often don't take the time to commend others. This is exactly how it should be. If you are commended (complimented) all the time, the commendations can lose their meaningfulness. Especially many beautiful women I know (and to a lesser extent, handsome men) know what I'm talking about.

Statistics are neutral in the sense that they will always show your specific (not overall) performance accurately - how many kills, assists, deaths you have done in DOTA, for example. Statistics also never have a day off - they will be there regardless of whether your teammates feel like commending you or not.

Finally, they provide "negative" feedback as well - if you, as a gunner, kept shooting the gatling all over the place (including shooting when out of range) and didn't hit the enemy, your accuracy statistic would be bad. This is of course only true if the statistics would measure this.

In short, yes, getting commended in a proper way (in my opinion, not the current Guns of Icarus Online way) feels more rewarding than seeing stats. However, you can always fall back on statistics if you are given no commendations or if you have use for "negative" feedback (non-personal critique is often helpful when people want to improve).

[redria]

Wait, how did we skip over the most relevant point made and jump straight into arguing about stats and ratings? The most important point made in the OP is that not only is there a learning curve to playing and using teamwork effectively, the game is significantly less friendly to players who have not yet begun ascending the learning curve.

In a first person shooter, even a fresh new player can headshot a veteran. Getting the jump on someone is good, but less important given the quick reaction rates possible. Both players can turn just as quickly (ignoring sensitivity).
In a MOBA, a more advanced player will naturally have the advantage, but can still be taken out by a poor move/stroke of luck.

In GoIO, the only time I expect to die against fresh players is if I take an exceptionally bad build, or I decide against better judgment that I can handle a 2 on 1. Alternatively, if my opponent is one good pilot and one fresh pilot, sometimes I underestimate how well the advanced pilot may use his ally. Keep in mind that I said die, not lose.

How frustrating is it to join a game super excited, get into a match, and get repeatedly shut out, to the point that you don't think you even did any permanent damage to your opponent?

Simply understanding how to maneuver a ship and deliver gun arcs to your crew gives an experienced player such an advantage over a newer player that pub matches are often decided before they even start, even if advanced players try to balance the teams. The other options a new player has are to not pilot until you have spent some time crewing and learning (which may not appeal to some people/doesn't allow 4-pack players to play together), or play in the novice matches (which would feel slightly embarrassing. Really? Let's challenge ourselves and try playing against people who know something.).

As much as the older part of the GoIO community is apprehensive about matchmaking, I think it will help a lot, even if it has only a rudimentary rating system. The goal isn't to deliver the best matches. It is to make the game easier to enter into, without ease being an active choice.
Get match-made into what amounts to a novice lobby? Eh, who cares? I get to play.
Get a choice of novice or non-novice? Eff that noise, I'm playing with the real players.

Naturally stats will drive the rating system, but I just want to make it clear that almost anything right now will work for matchmaking, and matchmaking will help solve one of the biggest problems with player retention.


TL;DR my stream of consciousness:
Due to the nature of the game, skill gaps are nearly insurmountable compared to other games. Matchmaking will help to prevent skill gaps within lobbies, which will in turn help keep players interested in the game, even if they learn slower than by playing in advanced lobbies.

[Schwerbelastung]

Wait, how did we skip over the most relevant point made and jump straight into arguing about stats and ratings? The most important point made in the OP is that not only is there a learning curve to playing and using teamwork effectively, the game is significantly less friendly to players who have not yet begun ascending the learning curve.

In a first person shooter, even a fresh new player can headshot a veteran. Getting the jump on someone is good, but less important given the quick reaction rates possible. Both players can turn just as quickly (ignoring sensitivity).
In a MOBA, a more advanced player will naturally have the advantage, but can still be taken out by a poor move/stroke of luck.

In GoIO, the only time I expect to die against fresh players is if I take an exceptionally bad build, or I decide against better judgment that I can handle a 2 on 1. Alternatively, if my opponent is one good pilot and one fresh pilot, sometimes I underestimate how well the advanced pilot may use his ally. Keep in mind that I said die, not lose.

A very good point. The reason I didn't try to "steer" the discussion to one way or another is that I feel it's better to talk about what people want to talk about. There may possibly have been a slight (over)abundance of words in the OP, but it's for two reasons; it gives people more things/opinions to comment on, and it lets me be more thorough. Thanks for reminding us (me, too!) of the learning curve point.

But yeah. Back to the point at hand. I also feel (who wudda thunk? )  that the learning curve in GoIO can be ruthless, and 4 of my own real life friends didn't play past the novice levels just because of that. Now that I've played some matches and gained some levels, I have the upper hand over novices. I often try to avoid flying "extremely powerful" builds, especially when facing low level players. Every 5-0 or 600-0 match I play where there are a lot of low level players on the losing team, I die a little inside. Ok, that may be an overstatement, but I don't feel like saying "gg" in those cases.

I hope matchmaking will fix some of this, as changing the learning curve drastically is not going to be a viable option in a game like GoIO where the development phase has already progressed very far. However, smaller steps can and should be taken. I have recently started a suggestions thread about improving in-game tutorials, where a developer has already graced us with his presence, telling us that the tutorials are being improved and that new suggestions are valuable.

If you have any ideas, feel free to pop by!

[Queso]

Queso, please read the thread before replying. Matchmaking ratings are handled by muse, SECRETLY. The only thing you can do to influence your matchmaking rating is win games or lose games against players with compatible ratings. What happens in the actual game is irrelevant and SHOULD be, because it's impossible to quantify and rate someone's GOI performance algorithmically, while player feedback is unreliable.

The point is, we're not talking about possible mechanics to help people pair up into even games, muse has already (sort of) implemented those. We're talking about mechanics that make players feel more proud of their victories so they don't quit the game because it feels dull.

 I feel player-contributed 'congrats' feel more rewarding than rows of numbers, and I explained why two posts earlier.

I must have misread something earlier then. My bad.

[snor-laxatives]

do we still having training days/ nights?  or a group of people who devote time to that?

(p.s. I wouldnt mind)

[Schwerbelastung]

do we still having training days/ nights?  or a group of people who devote time to that?

(p.s. I wouldnt mind)

I'm not sure about that - and even if we did, the problem is how are we going to get that message across to enough people? It is a nice idea, but possibly better put in action by having CAs / teachers regularly enter novice lobbies.