Attract and Keep New Players

Game Discussion Miscellaneous
1

As I see it now, the game is not very welcoming to new players because, mainly, of

a) loooooonnnnng leveling and grinding time

b) veteran hardcore player that can make T3 a very unpleasant experience

c) going from T3 to T5 need to step over T4, which is harder now and not fun at all.

 

So, I have some suggestions that could make the game more appealing to new player and could complement other actions like more advertisement, incentive to invite and mentor newcomers, more tutorial and guides.

 

My line here is : more cooperation and help to level and improve skill.

 

And below, by “newbe” I mean a new player (has not reach T4 ?) with a lower skill than the “helping veteran player” (diff of 300 or above ?)

 

  1. (touchy subject) : switch the current amosphere of “pay to shorten leveling time” to “pay for having fun or doing fun things”, but I believ that g4borg (and others) have talked about that already…

 

  1. would be nice to have a way to help “newbe” by giving (or maybe exchanging) modules/weapons/credits. That could be done through the forthcoming “dreadnought”  for guys in the same corpo, but also with people which are your friends or recruit…

To push older player to give away their old and low tier stuff and credits, they could be rewarded. Why not in loyalty vouchers if within the same faction. Or something needed at higher tiers (GS? raw components? other ?)

 

  1. when playing at low tiers (<= T3), allow more synergy/credit/loyalty gain for the experienced player when he squad with “newbe”. The gain bonus (maybe x2 or even x3) would be computed from the efficiency of the “newbe” player, not the experienced player : only assist and kills and capture, etc, of the “newbe” would be rewarded to the experienced player.

 

Sorry, not very well written ('cos not native english) and quickly layed down.

2

There have been many suggestions on how to fix this issue. All of them get ignored by the Devs.

 

But ultimately, the problem is that people who should be in T4 / T5 are staying in T2 / T3. I can probably just copy-paste the reasons, but here we go again in freehand…

 

  1. The Content Anchor.

The DLC of this game comes up to a lot of money. Around £300 if I remember correctly. The bulk of that content comes in ship form, which are all in T2 and T3. The Devs expect pilots to simply abandon up to £300 worth of content, but that’s not what people are going to do. When you pay a lot of money for a ship, you’re going to want to use it.

 

This is easily fixed; move the ships. All T2 DLC becomes T3 DLC, and all T3 DLC becomes T4 DLC.

 

  1. Mixed Tiers.

Nobody coming into T4 and seeing T5 on the opposite team is going to like that. T4 is unfair, and is currently only playable by skipping it entirely through PvE.

T4 needs to be its own tier again.

 

  1. The Grind Mountain.

The amount of grinding required to progress is too high, especially in T4 and T5. You grind for your ships, you grind for cash to buy / upgrade modules, you grind for loyalty to upgrade those modules, then you grind for yet more cash so you can buy the next ship and start all over again. It is too much work, and it feels like an uphill struggle when confronted with blue / purple pilots.

 

  1. Pay to Win.

Want access to the best ships in T3? You have to pay. Want a ship that can compete in higher tiers? The grind is too high precisely to make you pay money to get competitive. Want T6 ships but don’t have a year of your life to give up flying Invasion Mode? Don’t worry, Pay to Win is here to save you!

Paying real money gives you a huge advantage in this game. The sad part is that many players are stupid enough to argue that because you CAN spend a year grinding for Monocrystals to get your ship that means it’s not Pay to Win. But that is not true. Pay to Win is any game where paying money gives you a clear advantage over your rivals. Well, if your rivals are stuck with low-synergy Rank 10 ships with white and green gear and your real money can skip straight to Rank 15 blue, I’d say that’s an advantage!

The game’s monetisation needs to be overhauled to take the emphasis away from forcing people to pay up in order to escape the soul-destroying grind.

3

There have been many suggestions on how to fix this issue. All of them get ignored by the Devs.

 

But ultimately, the problem is that people who should be in T4 / T5 are staying in T2 / T3. I can probably just copy-paste the reasons, but here we go again in freehand…

 

  1. The Content Anchor.

The DLC of this game comes up to a lot of money. Around £300 if I remember correctly. The bulk of that content comes in ship form, which are all in T2 and T3. The Devs expect pilots to simply abandon up to £300 worth of content, but that’s not what people are going to do. When you pay a lot of money for a ship, you’re going to want to use it.

 

This is easily fixed; move the ships. All T2 DLC becomes T3 DLC, and all T3 DLC becomes T4 DLC.

 

  1. Mixed Tiers.

Nobody coming into T4 and seeing T5 on the opposite team is going to like that. T4 is unfair, and is currently only playable by skipping it entirely through PvE.

T4 needs to be its own tier again.

 

  1. The Grind Mountain.

The amount of grinding required to progress is too high, especially in T4 and T5. You grind for your ships, you grind for cash to buy / upgrade modules, you grind for loyalty to upgrade those modules, then you grind for yet more cash so you can buy the next ship and start all over again. It is too much work, and it feels like an uphill struggle when confronted with blue / purple pilots.

 

  1. Pay to Win.

Want access to the best ships in T3? You have to pay. Want a ship that can compete in higher tiers? The grind is too high precisely to make you pay money to get competitive. Want T6 ships but don’t have a year of your life to give up flying Invasion Mode? Don’t worry, Pay to Win is here to save you!

Paying real money gives you a huge advantage in this game. The sad part is that many players are stupid enough to argue that because you CAN spend a year grinding for Monocrystals to get your ship that means it’s not Pay to Win. But that is not true. Pay to Win is any game where paying money gives you a clear advantage over your rivals. Well, if your rivals are stuck with low-synergy Rank 10 ships with white and green gear and your real money can skip straight to Rank 15 blue, I’d say that’s an advantage!

The game’s monetisation needs to be overhauled to take the emphasis away from forcing people to pay up in order to escape the soul-destroying grind.

  1. You can still play tier 3 with those ships. I have DE and most tier 3 premiums, and I play them from time to time. But that doesn’t mind I can’t play higher tiers. Also, DLC content is mostly benefits and GS. Ships are a small part of the package.

 

  1. Rank 11 to rank 15 ships are equal. I agree that a full white rank 10 ship sucks, but so does any stock vehicle in any tier leveled game. You need to play less agressively, stay close to your mates, and support them. At least here you can do damage instead of bouncing everytime (like a stock IS in an E-75 in WoT)

 

  1. Nobody forces you to go past tier 3. High tiers are for competitive gameplay, and yes, the grind is higher, but rewards and ships performance is also higher. For me it wasn’t a difference to level up rank 12 to rank 9. I’m playing with license though, and usually comes first in efficiency, so maybe for others is harder. But it gives you a sense of achievement. Free top tier ships for nothing, that is not fun. Also, green modules are almost as good as purple ones. I still play with some green modules in tier 3, tier 4 and tier 5, and I don’t find it a disadvantage. 

 

  1. Pay to win refers to buying something which will improve the combat performance that free to play players cannot get with credits or playing the game. Here at star Conflict you don’t have ANY equipment which improves ship and combat performance, that cannot be bought by credits or ingame resources.

If somebody wants to spend 200$ in fully upgrading and manufacturing a Mjolnir right now, good for him (and better for the developers) But anyone can get that in 2 months just playing for the ship, and another 2 months for all the MK5 modules. And the Mjolnir is not better than the lightbringer, just different.

If you are in a low synergy rank 10 ship, and you have in front one guy who has spent 200$ to buy and upgrade to blue a rank 15 premium, that is a situational advantage. But will be able to bring your own rank 15 ship with full green/blue in 3 weeks, and with zero cost.

 

And since you had to endure the grind and mess with the ship numbers to overcome the initial disadvantage, you will be better player, and you will laugh at tier rushers.

4

I don’t agree with that assessment at all.

What made me a T3 player in the 0.7 days wasn’t grinding bad ships, sucking hard and getting better through bloody-mindedness. Part of how I learned to handle T3 was the fact I could camp in T2 until I unlocked R9 and T3 Mk III gear. Then I bought my way straight to the Cerberus-2 and THEN I learned to fly T3.

Moreover, that was the method many others used, and that was widely encouraged; skip the low-tier and mid-tier altogether.

The Devs never fixed that issue, they just removed the skip. With no tier-skip available under the current system there’s no real incentive to leave low tier. The only reason I own T4+ ships is for PvE and SQ. And now Invasion I guess. But this is a PvP game primarily, yet it doesn’t encourage PvP progression in the ‘end game’.

5

The Devs never fixed that issue, they just removed the skip. With no tier-skip available under the current system there’s no real incentive to leave low tier. The only reason I own T4+ ships is for PvE and SQ. And now Invasion I guess. But this is a PvP game primarily, yet it doesn’t encourage PvP progression in the ‘end game’.

 

Right now my Garm is at level 6 and I’ve not flown it before. I’m leveling it using free synergy. After that I’m going to buy and synergize a Wolf MkII to unlock the Tiger. But honestly I’m happier in T3. There’s no incentive for me to go higher, apart from the option to change hangers while enjoying the scenery along the way. I’ll have to repeat the synergy, loyalty and credit grind all over again.

6

The Devs never fixed that issue, they just removed the skip. With no tier-skip available under the current system there’s no real incentive to leave low tier. The only reason I own T4+ ships is for PvE and SQ. And now Invasion I guess. But this is a PvP game primarily, yet it doesn’t encourage PvP progression in the ‘end game’.

T4-T5 PvP is quite full now. You should try. It is fun. I’m playing with tier 4 ships because I like slayer medals.

 

And btw, tier 5 players with more than 1300 SR have their own queue, so you won’t have full purple rank 15 ships piloted by good players in tier 4.

7

I agree that the T4-T5 mixing, while not so bad, is also another barrier that make T5 hard to reach and thus, T3 more crowed and more fun to play.

 

But still, this is not exactly my whole point. My point is that, for newcomers, reaching T3 is long and ,sometimes, painfull because of hardcore vets camping there and farming on “innoncent lambs”. (I don’t even understand how this is fun for them…)

 

Besides, if you look at last post from the devs ([http://forum.star-conflict.com/index.php?/topic/24405-developer-blog-from-september-9th-future-plans-and-tournaments/](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/24405-developer-blog-from-september-9th-future-plans-and-tournaments/))

 

 

increased dependence on average battle efficiency, including negative multipliers. For example, if you have ships of ranks 11-14 yet decide to join a battle on T1, the post-battle efficiency should be divided into two - this figure will be compared to your current personal rating and counted, so a large number of flights in ‘sandbox’ in the end will reduce your efficiency slightly less than by half. But don’t be afraid - having T5 unlocked and flying ships of at least 9 rank will not affect your efficiency.

 

you see that they would like to refrain people with higher tiers unlocked to play too often in low tiers. And they use a stick for that : low rating. (besides, it can be a wrong stick for people who do not care about rating). I simply try to suggest using a reward instead of a punishment to cope with the same basic problem…

 

Besides, in our corp, we like to fly with low rank new comers to really help them…

8

I see only three issues with the current system.

 

Vets are playing in T2.

 

R10 ships suck, if any new players starts T4/5 with one they will like stop playing.

 

Ship crafting takes too many monocrystals, and too many raw materials. For me, it will take me longer to get the materials than the monocrystals. I don’t actually like invasion. 5 vs 1 seams a bit unbalanced. Especially when the 5 have turbo phasers.

 

Just add these items onto the loot at the end of PVP. Alternatively give a crazy high loyalty price for the ships module slots, in addition to being able to craft them. I’d rather pay 12M credits for a single ship slot then have to play invasion. I’ll pay 15M for my CPU and Compasitor slots.

9

Part of the problem is definitely the issue of having to start over with every tier. A well-equipped, max Synergy R9 is stronger than a poorly fitted low-synergy R10. This makes moving up feel like a step backward, and the even stronger opponents compound the problem.

R10 need to be competitive from the start.

10

And btw, tier 5 players with more than 1300 SR have their own queue, so you won’t have full purple rank 15 ships piloted by good players in tier 4.

Do they really? I was just playing some T4 PvP, and was consistently getting killed by a bunch of SR 1500 guys in T5 ships. I forget their names, but they were definitely good players with well fit, well leveled T5s.

11

Before correcting the grind, they should start by Balance the game and the power spike of ships regarding the progression in Tiers.

12

Do they really? I was just playing some T4 PvP, and was consistently getting killed by a bunch of SR 1500 guys in T5 ships. I forget their names, but they were definitely good players with well fit, well leveled T5s.

Yeah, it’s separate. Had a match in a 2 second que last night 2v2. I would rather of had a 4v4 or more but it was surprisingly fun, albeit a little slow paced.

13

I feel like a big contributor to the farming of people in T3. That’s my favorite to do with my NASA buddies and corpies. :slight_smile: It makes it kinda unfair and unfun for the Aces. As captain, I singledhandedly took out the enemy captain and entire team. I have a 1300+ SR and i was paired with the people between 900 and 1100 and in my premium blood tormentor, it was so easy to torp them all and purple pulsar them to pieces. T4 feels pretty worthless because it’s paired with t5 in pvp. It should be its own thing. The game is not pay to win, but it’s getting close to that. I just spent my first little bit of money on the game this week and had few problems before that. I do believe that you shouldn’t be able to pay gold to upgrade weapons. that’s just ridiculous. I do remember feeling like it was pay to win when i was trying to get to t3. Fortunately, some of my friends in Ultra helped me along with it.

14

It is all fun and games for new players, until they meet xKostyan with Doomsday missiles on a BlackSwarm.

15

I do believe that you shouldn’t be able to pay gold to upgrade weapons. that’s just ridiculous. I do remember feeling like it was pay to win when i was trying to get to t3. Fortunately, some of my friends in Ultra helped me along with it.

 

How is that ridiculous? The purpose of it is to get things faster than the rest. There are players with works and a lot of stuff to do that can play barely 2-3 hours a week but want to have fun and skip the grinding, so they pay to get everything faster and enjoy the game that few hours instead of spending them farming. 

 

As long as paying doesn’t give the player something that make him stronger than another player that didn’t pay, there’s nothing wrong. 

16

Okay, but what about my suggestions? Silly or stupid or not pertinent or why not or could be useful ?

:004j:

17

Tier 4 is broken. Going with rank11 against rank15 is not interesting.

18

Tier 4 is broken. Going with rank11 against rank15 is not interesting.

 

Maybe for you it is not. I find it quite enjoyable. Most people in the game think they are good just because they have a rank 15 ship. Then they got killed by a rank 11 recon.

19

Yeah, it’s separate. Had a match in a 2 second que last night 2v2. I would rather of had a 4v4 or more but it was surprisingly fun, albeit a little slow paced.

Weird. They must lump them back together during low population times or something, because I could swear that I was facing purple T5s with my T4 fits. My losing streak was not terribly enjoyable, but understandable, given that I haven’t flown T4+ PvP before, and thus kinda suck at it, but facing the same dude in a souped up T5 tackler in 2v2 didn’t make it much better.

20

There have been many suggestions on how to fix this issue. All of them get ignored by the Devs.

 

But ultimately, the problem is that people who should be in T4 / T5 are staying in T2 / T3. I can probably just copy-paste the reasons, but here we go again in freehand…

 

  1. The Content Anchor.

The DLC of this game comes up to a lot of money. Around £300 if I remember correctly. The bulk of that content comes in ship form, which are all in T2 and T3. The Devs expect pilots to simply abandon up to £300 worth of content, but that’s not what people are going to do. When you pay a lot of money for a ship, you’re going to want to use it.

 

This is easily fixed; move the ships. All T2 DLC becomes T3 DLC, and all T3 DLC becomes T4 DLC.

 

  1. Mixed Tiers.

Nobody coming into T4 and seeing T5 on the opposite team is going to like that. T4 is unfair, and is currently only playable by skipping it entirely through PvE.

T4 needs to be its own tier again.

 

  1. The Grind Mountain.

The amount of grinding required to progress is too high, especially in T4 and T5. You grind for your ships, you grind for cash to buy / upgrade modules, you grind for loyalty to upgrade those modules, then you grind for yet more cash so you can buy the next ship and start all over again. It is too much work, and it feels like an uphill struggle when confronted with blue / purple pilots.

 

  1. Pay to Win.

Want access to the best ships in T3? You have to pay. Want a ship that can compete in higher tiers? The grind is too high precisely to make you pay money to get competitive. Want T6 ships but don’t have a year of your life to give up flying Invasion Mode? Don’t worry, Pay to Win is here to save you!

Paying real money gives you a huge advantage in this game. The sad part is that many players are stupid enough to argue that because you CAN spend a year grinding for Monocrystals to get your ship that means it’s not Pay to Win. But that is not true. Pay to Win is any game where paying money gives you a clear advantage over your rivals. Well, if your rivals are stuck with low-synergy Rank 10 ships with white and green gear and your real money can skip straight to Rank 15 blue, I’d say that’s an advantage!

The game’s monetisation needs to be overhauled to take the emphasis away from forcing people to pay up in order to escape the soul-destroying grind.

  1. Agreeable

  2. I love seeing tier 5’s in my tier 4’s, I make a lot of points :slight_smile: however whenever I play tier 5’s i get 2v2’s and 4v4’s? does the game sense my greatness and refuses to let me farm the sheep even faster?

3.uuuuuuu grinding suuuucks. I got my apollo maybe a day or so ago and just now got purple weapon. where can i find tier 5  mk5 weapon blueprints?

  1. it is interesting to me the module layouts on premium ships because they feel optimized for the ship type, however I was doing in my old ships what I’m doing in my premium ships just making more money and exp so idk.

The main reason I play t3 and t4 at all, especially t4, is because i cant seem to get full games at tier 5 and i dont like solo dropping with strangers when the numbers are small because i cant trust them.