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Making new players stay

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BinaryDragon:
First off, I would like to congratulate Muse Games on their release of Guns of Icarus Online, and Guns of Icarus Alliance (from here on just Guns of Icarus) on the Playstation 4 platform !

Good job, awesome to get people on console, into the player base.

The reason I write this post. Is that I have been in this game since 2014. I have seen many sales. I think I got a good idea of the problems that cause most of the new players to leave the game.

I would like to give you my input on how to make new players stay, and become a part of the community.

When I play with new people who just joined Guns of Icarus.Typically they tell me the game is awesome. They love it.And with good reason. It is indeed one of the best team based games out there. Ther is NOTHING wrong with the game itself

The problem come when they (novices) get matched against people who have 5000+ matches and they and their friends have 20. Imagine if you wanted to pick up cs:go, dota2, league of legends or team fortress with your friends. Imagine, you getting matched up against a team where 7 out of 10 players have 5000 matches played. It would not be fun for you and your friends. You would get owned and your opponents might realize how bad you are and start killing you with knifes. To "give you a chance"

In the same way, Guns of Icarus is not fun for the new players who run into stacks of high level players (and as we all know they will eventually do that). They get crushed and have a very bad gaming experience. So they exit and never come back

To combat this problem I suggest you put in place a new match making system. The one that is in place right now is not working in favor of new players. It is working in favor of veterans who are going to play the game anyway.

What would such a match making system look like ?

You select your desired class(es), you click a button and when the match is found there is no lobby. You go directly to the game. The person who is pilot, will select tools for the engineers and gunners. And while I know this takes away the "freedom" from the poor novice to pick parachute instead of a spyglass...so they at least have a chance of getting a soft landing if they fall off the ship. I think that it would help a lot in terms of getting better matches. Both for novices and experienced players

What about friends, who wants to play with their friends ?

Keep the match making lobby. Let people search as a party of friends. Let them go into the "custom game list" If they have a full team of people who are level 135; then it might take a while.And sure that sucks. But it's better than them creating a custom lobby and stomping all the novices that join.Like they do now. People who are already level 135 in any class already proved that they love this game and are probably going to stay regardless.

Typically when I bring the issue of the match making system up to other players. Their response is "the playerbase can't support this kind of system"
That might be true. The playerbase might not be able to support it. But if you keep the match making system that is in place now, you will never get the playerbase to support a superior match making. Like a snake biting it's own tail and saying "I gotta eat my tail cause otherwise ill starve to death"

finally I would like to address "smurf accounts"

Meaning accounts where a player, who is (typically) very skilled, make a new account in order pretend he or she is a novice and destroy novices who don't even see that level 135 coming at them. While i do understand that smurf account provides a little bit of cash flow. It is nothing compared to the potential value they kill with their smurf account. If they want a new nick name they can pay the 1$ fee. And while I don't know this for sure. I have a feeling that if some high level player wanted a stat reset and talked to an admin about it. They would get it .


Thank you for taking the time to read this post

Corporal Ravioli:
I think a more selective matchmaking or tier system would be unsustainable with the current playerbase. This is not a minor issue - the snake may eat itself but there's a high chance that you won't have a snake anymore.

I think if anything lobby inbalance should be much more forward-facing with a more obvious announcement that the lobby is stacked, flag the specific offending ship algorithimically, and bar the match from starting unless every single pilot readies. Because of the populace, the level disparity would have to be huge; luckily for us, it typically is.

Regarding smurfing - half of these guys (I can point fingers but you know who you are) aren't even trying to hide it with their username. It doesn't affect the ability to join games, so it's exclusively a hiding tactic. Slimy as hell.

BinaryDragon:
There is no point in having people who played 20 matches play people who have +5000. And there never will be. It might be "fun" for the vets. But in the long run it will only make fewer people stay. Unless the new players "get lucky" and play with a person who have a good understanding of the game (such as a ca) it's hopeless. And even with a CA in the crew they can't win.From the start all the vets know that it's not gonna be a match it is gonna be a PURGE

What is the CA suppose to tell them when they lose 5-0, without breaking hull on the enemies even once ?

I am not a CA, but I am trying to think about positive things to say to a group of new players after such a thing

Corporal Ravioli:

--- Quote from: BinaryDragon on May 12, 2018, 10:49:41 am --- [...]play with a person who have a good understanding of the game (such as a ca)
--- End quote ---

This would be nice if the majority of CA players weren't the ones stacking. It's become a laughable assumption that a CA ship would split their talent across four instead of botching an entire lobby. The problem with having a CA system in a game this dependent on performing roles is that most experienced players would rather hole up than risk facing uncertainty. It's the kind of behavior that signals to me that being a CA is a mark of popularity and not much more.


As far as I've directly witnessed, the best group of people when it comes to treating new players is ALTO. They hold events that push new players onto the helm and get them engaged with the game mechanics in a way that doesn't guarantee tragedy when they fail. Lobbies larger than 2v2 greatly, greatly assist in this.


--- Quote from: BinaryDragon on May 12, 2018, 10:49:41 am ---I am not a CA, but I am trying to think about positive things to say to a group of new players after such a thing

--- End quote ---

My salty go-to is "Hey at least THEY'RE having fun" with a dose of "but clearly they're low-stim if this is all it takes." A more earnest explanation revolves around the theory that veterans become more and more scared of uncertainty the longer they play. Funny.

MightyKeb:

--- Quote from: Corporal Ravioli on May 12, 2018, 10:00:27 am ---I think if anything lobby inbalance should be much more forward-facing with a more obvious announcement that the lobby is stacked, flag the specific offending ship algorithimically, and bar the match from starting unless every single pilot readies. Because of the populace, the level disparity would have to be huge; luckily for us, it typically is.

--- End quote ---

This sounds like a terrible idea. One of those novice pilots not knowing how to ready up is enough to bar the match from starting at all - all because some people wanted to play with their friends and also happen to be playing for a long time. If anything, it's more incentive to play on these smurf accounts that you despise.

Otherwise, I support a more obvious way to point out stacked crews to the lobby. Lack of clarity for new players is an omnipresent fault in this game, mostly in gameplay and for certain aspects of the UI. If you can point out the stack, you can atleast warn new players what they're getting into so that the ones who score appropriately high in the pussy-player-factor can bail out of the game to preserve their ego for another day.

I also second Ravioli's response to OP's idea.

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