Playerproblem
Posted: 29 Aug 2014, 20:11
I want to help this game to somehow get more popularity. Much gamemodes are not playable anymore because of the lack of other players. I joined some discussions about features of the game but I realized that even if they where perfect that may not be enough to attract much more players. So I put down my thoughts about the main issues of the game hear. I'm in no way qualified to say anything about this but I did wrote down my thoughts anyway in hope that some of the ideas in it will help somehow.
1. Problem:
too few new players
Reason 1:
complexity of movement and featuring of hard gamemodes like elite
This point doesn't really needs an explanation. Shootmania is definitely less noob friendly as games like CoD or BF.
The thing I don't understand with that is the popularity of LoL. Its very complicated when starting with it.
Is the big difference that LoL is free to play. Maybe?
reason 2:
competitive gameplay
You started with Trackmania. This game was extremly popular and lead you to what you are. I thought about why Shootmania doesn't have this impact. I think there is a main difference between the gameplay of the two games beside the different genres. Trackmania was competitive. every fault you did brought you more down in the leaderboard. the leaderboard... that's where the competition took its place. getting the best time relative to your opponents. What is shootmania compared to that. its the same with the difference that your "track difficulty" is directly linked to the skill your opponents have.
If you play against pros you will not only see that on the leaderboard but also feel it in the gameplay which is much more frustrating. Therefore the gameplay is much more competitive which leads to Problem 2.
Reason 3:
cliff between noobs and pros
Noobs will often play with better players. Therefore their "track difficulty" is other their skill level. They get frustrated. Good players will get "easy tracks" which leads to flow and motivation and faster skill development.
Therefore for noobs its really hard to develop skill ad pros can easily get motivated and develop their skill rapidly.
An example:
Pros rush you so you die before really getting into the game and improve your skills. This way there is no learning curve and much frustration.
Problem 2:
loss of players
resaon 1:
flaming
Things like luck, smurf, lag, ping, rusher, hacker, ez, etc. (I really found surprisingly much =P) prevent positive conversations and things like a simple gj or nt. Have you ever seen somebody on trackmania blaming the best player on a server for luck, cheating or anything else? nearly every time a player reaches a good global ranking on a server he gets the honour of the players in the chat for it. (I didnt even heard such negative words as I mentioned above in Trackmania yet) The few positive feedback may result in the ones who get only motivated by ranks which leads to smurfs and eve more frustration for over players.
reason 2:
hatred against new features
Imagine you have a given amount of skill. This will give you a specific rank in the rankig system.
Without improving your skill you will keep this ranking. So now nadeo implements a new feature, no matter how good or bad it is. If you are doing nothing now the other people who learn to play with the new feature will get better then you are. you just loose some of your advantage you got through hard training. in other words: to keep your level you are forced to learn to play with the new feature and improve your skill.
These reasons are directly linked to the competitive gameplay of SM.
Possible solution:
Make a titel wich gets popular and creates through the connection over Maniaplanet playerbases for SM, TM, QM.
-Sell it as a complete and free game. This might create much more interests in the media. Furthermore its easier to get friends playing when you say its free to play and dont have to explain the demo limitations.
-make gamemode(s) for this title which are easy to learn and not frustrating. A tutorial for movement system and the gamemode(s) should be implemented. Big waiting times should be prevented after dying.
-Make it less competitive. As I sad above Shootmania is much more competitive the Trackmania was. this might prevent new players from getting into the game and frustrate players which are already playing a longer time.
*first the thing I think is made very good to reach this goal already: In most gamemodes you have two lives. So you get punished by dying only every second hit. But you get a reward for every hit. So there are over all more rewards then punishment. A game where this is made very bad is Assassins Creed multiplayer. There are only one hit kills. The gameplay is extremely frustrating. So in our noobfriendly gamemode(s) more lives would be a great idea.
*Make the skill level of different players less easy to compare. For example: If both players have laser and one eliminates the other its pretty clear he is the better player.
If one player has rockets the other one laser the thing isn't that clear anymore. So the loadouts of the players should be different. They dont even need to be balanced just different.
Maybe some different characters to choose from.
*Make hitting more random. This sounds stupid but it will prevent big gaps between pros and noobs. The best comparison is laser an rocket. Because you have much more projectiles with the rocket its easier to hit with them without having much skill.
On the opposite side its not too easy to hit with them when you are a pro because there is some randomness in the movement of the enemy which you need to predict because of the flight time. If you don't hit with a rocket nobody will blame you.
Rockets are not totally random but much more random as the laser is. More weapons like them are needed.
-long time motivation
That's a point I personally dislike. In my opinion Shootmania's gameplay is enough motivation for going on playing but there are much player which get much more motivated through level ups and other progression the game gives you.
A ranking system is already implemented but it doesn't serve its purpose of motivation in higher ranks. I want to share the experiences I made with it. Most people reach a point where they cant progress in the world ranking anymore. They get very frustrated when loosing points and going down the leaderboard too. I know people who partly stopped playing SM caused by that.
So we need a system which rewards you not only for skill but for playing time too.
Unlockable weapons are a motivations used in very popular titels.
Complexity is used as motivation too. Different Characters or loadouts lead to new, interesting and different ways of playing. There are tactics in shootmania that aren't changed anymore and which are getting boring. For example the defender positions in elite. New loadouts could break this old tactics and bring new room for experiments into the game. An idea for preventing noobs to get rushed for example would be a pulswave throwing back the enemies. Free teleportation in elite could prevent standard defender positions.
Thanks to be so crazy to read all this! =P
1. Problem:
too few new players
Reason 1:
complexity of movement and featuring of hard gamemodes like elite
This point doesn't really needs an explanation. Shootmania is definitely less noob friendly as games like CoD or BF.
The thing I don't understand with that is the popularity of LoL. Its very complicated when starting with it.
Is the big difference that LoL is free to play. Maybe?
reason 2:
competitive gameplay
You started with Trackmania. This game was extremly popular and lead you to what you are. I thought about why Shootmania doesn't have this impact. I think there is a main difference between the gameplay of the two games beside the different genres. Trackmania was competitive. every fault you did brought you more down in the leaderboard. the leaderboard... that's where the competition took its place. getting the best time relative to your opponents. What is shootmania compared to that. its the same with the difference that your "track difficulty" is directly linked to the skill your opponents have.
If you play against pros you will not only see that on the leaderboard but also feel it in the gameplay which is much more frustrating. Therefore the gameplay is much more competitive which leads to Problem 2.
Reason 3:
cliff between noobs and pros
Noobs will often play with better players. Therefore their "track difficulty" is other their skill level. They get frustrated. Good players will get "easy tracks" which leads to flow and motivation and faster skill development.
Therefore for noobs its really hard to develop skill ad pros can easily get motivated and develop their skill rapidly.
An example:
Pros rush you so you die before really getting into the game and improve your skills. This way there is no learning curve and much frustration.
Problem 2:
loss of players
resaon 1:
flaming
Things like luck, smurf, lag, ping, rusher, hacker, ez, etc. (I really found surprisingly much =P) prevent positive conversations and things like a simple gj or nt. Have you ever seen somebody on trackmania blaming the best player on a server for luck, cheating or anything else? nearly every time a player reaches a good global ranking on a server he gets the honour of the players in the chat for it. (I didnt even heard such negative words as I mentioned above in Trackmania yet) The few positive feedback may result in the ones who get only motivated by ranks which leads to smurfs and eve more frustration for over players.
reason 2:
hatred against new features
Imagine you have a given amount of skill. This will give you a specific rank in the rankig system.
Without improving your skill you will keep this ranking. So now nadeo implements a new feature, no matter how good or bad it is. If you are doing nothing now the other people who learn to play with the new feature will get better then you are. you just loose some of your advantage you got through hard training. in other words: to keep your level you are forced to learn to play with the new feature and improve your skill.
These reasons are directly linked to the competitive gameplay of SM.
Possible solution:
Make a titel wich gets popular and creates through the connection over Maniaplanet playerbases for SM, TM, QM.
-Sell it as a complete and free game. This might create much more interests in the media. Furthermore its easier to get friends playing when you say its free to play and dont have to explain the demo limitations.
-make gamemode(s) for this title which are easy to learn and not frustrating. A tutorial for movement system and the gamemode(s) should be implemented. Big waiting times should be prevented after dying.
-Make it less competitive. As I sad above Shootmania is much more competitive the Trackmania was. this might prevent new players from getting into the game and frustrate players which are already playing a longer time.
*first the thing I think is made very good to reach this goal already: In most gamemodes you have two lives. So you get punished by dying only every second hit. But you get a reward for every hit. So there are over all more rewards then punishment. A game where this is made very bad is Assassins Creed multiplayer. There are only one hit kills. The gameplay is extremely frustrating. So in our noobfriendly gamemode(s) more lives would be a great idea.
*Make the skill level of different players less easy to compare. For example: If both players have laser and one eliminates the other its pretty clear he is the better player.
If one player has rockets the other one laser the thing isn't that clear anymore. So the loadouts of the players should be different. They dont even need to be balanced just different.
Maybe some different characters to choose from.
*Make hitting more random. This sounds stupid but it will prevent big gaps between pros and noobs. The best comparison is laser an rocket. Because you have much more projectiles with the rocket its easier to hit with them without having much skill.
On the opposite side its not too easy to hit with them when you are a pro because there is some randomness in the movement of the enemy which you need to predict because of the flight time. If you don't hit with a rocket nobody will blame you.
Rockets are not totally random but much more random as the laser is. More weapons like them are needed.
-long time motivation
That's a point I personally dislike. In my opinion Shootmania's gameplay is enough motivation for going on playing but there are much player which get much more motivated through level ups and other progression the game gives you.
A ranking system is already implemented but it doesn't serve its purpose of motivation in higher ranks. I want to share the experiences I made with it. Most people reach a point where they cant progress in the world ranking anymore. They get very frustrated when loosing points and going down the leaderboard too. I know people who partly stopped playing SM caused by that.
So we need a system which rewards you not only for skill but for playing time too.
Unlockable weapons are a motivations used in very popular titels.
Complexity is used as motivation too. Different Characters or loadouts lead to new, interesting and different ways of playing. There are tactics in shootmania that aren't changed anymore and which are getting boring. For example the defender positions in elite. New loadouts could break this old tactics and bring new room for experiments into the game. An idea for preventing noobs to get rushed for example would be a pulswave throwing back the enemies. Free teleportation in elite could prevent standard defender positions.
Thanks to be so crazy to read all this! =P