My opinion about the game and some suggestions

[kiaragovaert]

Okay, hi maniaplanet

I created an account just to make this post Oo.
I really like this game and I can see its potential. This game could really work for esports as well as for just casual gaming. It actually offers a lot if you get to know your way in maniaplanet.

The main problems with this game:
- Friend system ( no invites, no party, no voicechat, no copy-paste, clicking a link crashes the game. How UNsocial is this game...? )


- Usability
Even creating a colored nickname is difficult...
Watching a replay in 1st person is a chore...
Finding your way to a server is a task...

Why would I ever want to read about "this friend is now friends with this friend" ? I'd rather see the most-viewed mania-links, a shortcut to "replays"manialink, or your own created shortcuts, or a collection of links to upcoming cups/streams, or links to newest/best skins.... Please dont give me this useless information I absolutely do not care about. Okay, maybe I care a bit about it, but I am sure we can all agree that people in general would care more about my list with suggestions.


- Intuitivity
The entire concept of working with titles is weird and defies logic... you create disparity within ur own community.
Installing titles is impossible because you cant find them... (which results in unplayed titles = sooooo unrewarding for developers. )
Manialinks are impossible to find...
That automatic replay-saver is useless, because nobody knows about it (probably half of the readers of this post dont even know what it is.)
Mania-stars are hidden-away on the website and currently are just clutter on the scoreboards. Why cant it work like the "report-button"? You go to a players profile, you click on a button and he gets a star. Sounds to me that this could be done easily.

Why would you ever, as a developer, want to make a custom game-mod/map for this game? Nobody, of this already small game, will get to know it.


-Planets
Do I really need to come to these forums to read an essay about "the economics of the game" to actually understand what planets are used for? On top of that its written in POOR english. Who in his right mind comes up with this?

Planets should be won when you played a number of matches, when you did something insane ingame, when you connect to the game everyday for 2weeks ( loyalty to the game ) and when you reach certain amounts of LP.
These planets should be spend on SKINS(made by NADEO, and maybe could ask the help of the community), LP-Boosts, Crosshairs, Horns and maybe we should think of some new stuff to spend planets on?

Work with daily contracts or something! "Get 20rockets in an Elite match and win 50planets." and link it to an achievement.


- Ingame problems
The design of scoreboards look terrible. Its okay in Elite. The others look terrible...
Widgets ( probably not made by NADEO ) look old.
No ingame sounds or cool effects. Only the +1 & +0...
I want to hear doublekill, perfect or longshot with some awesome voice-fx and make this game actually fun for the player and fun to watch as a spectator.

Give this game some personnality please.


- Different map-types
With its 20K maps somehow all maps look the same! We need themed maps with Winter/Jungle/Dust/Castle/Future effects. Just something to add to the personality of the game. And dont make it a different environment. Servers should have maps with different looks & feels and it should just work like that.
This is so important to keep the game feel fresh so you want to actually keep playing the game without creating disparity.


- Replayability
Why would a player keep on playing this game? Give them something that forces them to come back.
If you win or lose you should get LP. Even topplayers should get LP. Those players play the most & actually promote your game and you give them nothing in return? What a big joke.
The fact that you only can get 100K on mm-servers is even a bigger joke.

When you are watching an official match of 2proteams facing eachother you get to see how they ALL get 0.00 LP.
It looks so weird for spectators.

Make your own , good-looking ( not that 1999 widget-style ) rank-plugin and put it on your servers. Let players rank up on their favourite servers and motivate them to actually comeback and reconnect to the server.

Add Steam-achievements or ingame achievements


All these problems (and much more) combined results in a small playerbase


After all these fixes ( or at least some of them ) you could think about relaunching this game:
- Restart GO4SM. You guys built the game so you sure as hell can get GO4 back. If you cant, who can?
- Another trailer
- Lower price for a short time( buy the game in february and get it for only 9.99 )
- A free Steam Weekend
- One day to get the FULL game for free. Everybody who downloads the game that specific day gets it completely for free ( like L4D2 on steam recently. It was epic. )

Im sure NADEO , with all its professionals, can think of more good ways to relaunch/re-advertise this game.
It would also be smart to actually announce these promotions/free-weekends/upcoming trailers to the community before they actually start. This way big teams/organisations/websites as aAa, Lemondogs, CPLAY, WD, Mania-actue, Leetgamerz can actually use this information and provide some coverage in-time on their websites/social media.

aAa+LD+CPLAY+WD+Mania-actue+LGZ = 50 000 Followers on FB together.

If NADEO plans a free weekend and NADEO only post the news about it the same day you will take away their chance ( teams/orgs ) to actually share this information and you lose 50 000 potential customers. You see how it works?


I know I may sound a bit frank, but I think sometimes its necessary to actually be heard. And trust me, it needs to be heard. At the moment this game is struggling and thats just the absolute truth. You could argue with me that its only a new game, but every lost customer, wont look back and wont reinstall the game. lost customer = lost customer.
I absolutely love this game, but it frustrates me that all this potential just goes to waste.

Peace out.

Edit : spelling fixes

[Omnixor]

obviously most of what you said makes sense. now if only this made sense to Nadeo...

[rzn]

The real truth is.

If nadeo does put everything you said into the game the sales would go crazy and community would be insanely big.

But: They really want to keep the game simple as possible.

They don't want achievements/sounds/better HUD/reason to stay in the game for unlocks.

They don't want new players obviously, they like 15 players a day playing the game. Well, I kept playing it but I'm bored as hell.

[djhubertus]

Good to see that someone has similar vision of Shootmania and ManiaPlanet in 2014

Of course +1000000 and I hope, Nadeo will listen your suggestion to improve mainly friend system.

They don't want new players obviously, they like 15 players a day playing the game.

Lol, vicious circle "We want more players, but we don't want to much".

[rzn]

Good to see that someone has similar vision of Shootmania and ManiaPlanet in 2014

Of course +1000000 and I hope, Nadeo will listen your suggestion to improve mainly friend system.

They don't want new players obviously, they like 15 players a day playing the game.

Lol, vicious circle "We want more players, but we don't want to much".

exactly, we want more player but we wont add features that keep players in game.

None the less maniaplanet has some great features like replay editor, great engine and gameplay and soon more stuff in maniaplanet 3. but thats not as nearly as enough to stay for new player.

I know sm has to be balanced but when new player installs sm and plays public, he has it all, weapons (ofc) skins, no achievements everything. Only thing that keeps player is LP but now it went too far with 100k LP.

-model/skins to unclock
-achievements
-new HUD
-doublekill multikill and stuff, ANY voiced over in game, at least when i get hurt of fall or something player should say ouch, something, like aaah ANYTHING... dear god after year of playing it's so dull. when i win match no music no effects nobody says win. just game stops and says that and that team won, shows scoreboard in absolute silence and just goes on. what the...

[plopp]

The real truth is.

If nadeo does put everything you said into the game the sales would go crazy and community would be insanely big.

But: They really want to keep the game simple as possible.

They don't want achievements/sounds/better HUD/reason to stay in the game for unlocks.

They don't want new players obviously, they like 15 players a day playing the game. Well, I kept playing it but I'm bored as hell.

The problem from my pov is that they want to make EVERYTHING their own. They want to make everything from scratch and not take lessons from other games that has succeeded. If someone suggests that they should take something from another game the response is "We want our own game, if you want the other game just go play that" or "We want to move forward not go back".

Also from what I've seen they take every piece of criticism as a personal attack on them. "Please don't tell us how to make game, we know better than you"

I sure hope the new update will come fast and be as big and good as they make it out to be, otherwise I'll be out of here pretty soon.

[kiaragovaert]

The real truth is.

If nadeo does put everything you said into the game the sales would go crazy and community would be insanely big.

But: They really want to keep the game simple as possible.

They don't want achievements/sounds/better HUD/reason to stay in the game for unlocks.

They don't want new players obviously, they like 15 players a day playing the game. Well, I kept playing it but I'm bored as hell.

The problem from my pov is that they want to make EVERYTHING their own. They want to make everything from scratch and not take lessons from other games that has succeeded. If someone suggests that they should take something from another game the response is "We want our own game, if you want the other game just go play that" or "We want to move forward not go back".

Also from what I've seen they take every piece of criticism as a personal attack on them. "Please don't tell us how to make game, we know better than you"

I sure hope the new update will come fast and be as big and good as they make it out to be, otherwise I'll be out of here pretty soon.

I dont believe that NADEO ever said that. I mean... They use lightbulbs at home to light their homes , right? Or are they inventing this themselves too first?

I believe in NADEO and Im sure someone will read this post and make note of it. Besides nothing that I said hasnt been posted here before on the forums. I only made this post to bring it to their attention, again. Im sure they will listen to most , probably not all, things i mentioned.

[Pikanatox]

Good ideas, i'm totally agree with you

[plopp]

I dont believe that NADEO ever said that. I mean... They use lightbulbs at home to light their homes , right? Or are they inventing this themselves too first?

Browse the forum a bit and see other good suggestions made that was met with these responses Also I thought this thread was about the game and not what the nadeo employees do at home.

[UrinStein]

I dont believe that NADEO ever said that. I mean... They use lightbulbs at home to light their homes , right? Or are they inventing this themselves too first?

Browse the forum a bit and see other good suggestions made that was met with these responses ;)

Yes indeed. Every time someone simply says, that there is something specific that makes the game/Maniaplanet unenjoyable for him/her they go like:
"Uh yeah? Well, would you have done any better? I don't think so!"
Obviously implying, that the people sharing their opinion and experience in the forum don't know shit, since they are >no fucking game developers<, so the shoukd stfu and go fuck themselves. That's why the list of people giving detailed and well thought criticism (or at least criticism they do really htink is very important) has changed so much over the course of the last year. Most people giving their opinion are treated like shit, when it's no explicitly good one OR a statement that can easily be countered.
Whenever they have "lost the argument" they basically say "fuck off".

Inseatd of once saying: "Yeah, you have a point there (duh...), we are trying to find a solution to that/ we will try to find a solution to that."

Other companies spend money to ask their customers questions like "How did you like the product? ... Would you recommend it to others?"
Compared to that shit the Shootmania Forum is a fucking Brainstorming Goldmine! But people are being punished or simply ignored when insisting on their opinion that something is bad compared to... logic.

PS: Well done OP. Most of it wouldn't be on my priorities list, but I can totally understand every single point in it.
Yours are rather "new player problems", I guess.