Extensive feedback from a newbie

Game Discussion Miscellaneous
21

Idk what ur stats are like, but im CEO of RadiX so message me ingame. I would be willing to take a new player for training if he is willing to spend plenty of time ingame and work on getting good.

I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think it would be a good idea. I’m a casual player and have no interest in getting really good. Joining your corp would lead to frustration on both sides.

 

If all players showed a resolve to get good, then a lot more would make good corporations which would help them. This would make the game so much better.

 

Telling or even forcing people to become good players will never fix anything, because people do what they want to do, and there is strong evidence that more than 90% of all gamers are non-professional gamers. It’s the same as saying “if all people studied astrophysics and philosophy, the world would be a better place”. While that may be true, it is completely unrealistic. Are you willing to study astrophysics to make the world a better place? I don’t think so. People will NEVER all do anything, no matter what you pick.

All it does is locking out all the people who don’t have time or motivation to study this game in an extensive way. And that group of people is by far the vast majority among gamers.

 

In the end, for you I would say keep flying. In League of Legends, there’s something called Elo Hell, and everyone has to go through it. I know it seems like you’re fighting an uphill battle against machinegun emplacements when you only have peashooters, and it will be frustrating. But keep flying in squads (you’re doing that right, good for you), and learn map awareness, positioning skills, and basic squad tactics like focusfire, communication via Teamspeak/Skype/whatever, and repositioning as a single unit. From those foundations, a strong player is made - one that can face up against these veterans.

 

I’m perfectly fine regarding the basics of this type of game. Heck, I’ve written a book that teaches newbies how to become better at WoT in particular and team-based games in general (you can check it out [here](http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/436045-the-tankers-handbook/page pid 9172901), it’s a free PDF). What worries me is that the game requires everyone to be hardcore to even be allowed to have some fun. That needs to go, and as far as I can see, it’s both doable and payable for a small dev team.

Also, Elo hell is a common myth. LoL has a very good Elo system. If I am in a low Elo bracket for an extended amount of time, then I belong there, independent of my own belief. The reason why the term exists in the first place goes back to how human perception works and how our brain is wired. But that’s another topic.

 

I understand that you all want to help me become a better pilot, and I appreciate it. But that doesn’t help all the newbies out there. I’m not the one who needs help, they do. I have a very good skillset to become better anytime, if I want. But most people don’t. Most people just want to blow up stuff in space. And a couple things in this game punishes them for doing it, so they leave.

 

What we have to do is provide feedback and find cost-efficient suggestions to remove all the sucky parts. Humans always work best when knowledge and ideas are shared. And if the devs don’t have the eyes to see what I see, then I’ll gladly lend them mine, to make blowing up stuff in space more fun for everyone.

 

I encourage you all to contribute your experiences with the game mechanics here, especially the feedback you might have from other players why they left. Be as specific as you can. If you are in contact with them, ask them what exactly their reasons are/were. There are no silly answers here - if a thing as simple as a button annoyed the hell out of them, then we need to know!

I’ll convert all the experiences and impressions that I gathered to create a topic in the suggestions subforum in the near future. That topic will focus on providing small or medium sized tasks for the developers in a concise way. And the more feedback I get from other people as well, the better I can include everything that I’m not aware of yet.

22

I appreciate the offer, but I don’t think it would be a good idea. I’m a casual player and have no interest in getting really good. Joining your corp would lead to frustration on both sides.

 

 

Telling or even forcing people to become good players will never fix anything, because people do what they want to do, and there is strong evidence that more than 90% of all gamers are non-professional gamers. It’s the same as saying “if all people studied astrophysics and philosophy, the world would be a better place”. While that may be true, it is completely unrealistic. Are you willing to study astrophysics to make the world a better place? I don’t think so. People will NEVER all do anything, no matter what you pick.

All it does is locking out all the people who don’t have time or motivation to study this game in an extensive way. And that group of people is by far the vast majority among gamers.

 

you don’t have to be pro to be decent. i’m always happy when i get ppl who are decent on my team. 

 

Decent means:

 

pulls own weight

kills more than dies

goes to right beacons

covers team mates and protects engi

can aim decently

 

that’s not hard to achieve.

23

You mean *100 and *150 or? Since 100%=1 and *1 makes not that much sense and you would have to deal 100 times more dmg than the targets surviveability to get the 150pts(100pts).

experience earned is based on total hp of the target. So if the target has 20,000 hit points, then you need to inflict 20,000 damage (after resistances) to get 100 points for an Assist or 150 points for a kill. If the target has 20,000 hp and you inflict 10,000 damage, you’ll get 50 / 75 experience for an assist and kill respectively.

24

experience earned is based on total hp of the target. So if the target has 20,000 hit points, then you need to inflict 20,000 damage (after resistances) to get 100 points for an Assist or 150 points for a kill. If the target has 20,000 hp and you inflict 10,000 damage, you’ll get 50 / 75 experience for an assist and kill respectively.

I know. I only said that you would need with nulls formula 100 times more DMG than the targets ship could survive to get the max points.

But: (dmg/(shield+hull))=<1 and 1*100%=1 <=max pts with nulls formula.

So it has to be 100(150) not 100(150)% to get the 100(150) points.

25

Hi! First of all, there is possible I’m one of those veterans you have found capable of fighting 3v1 in a beacon and kill them all while capping the beacon. Mostly because recon is my main, and currently I’m playing a lot of tier 3.So let me do a small resume here.

 

You like this game, but you are about leaving it because you have reached tier 3, where many veteran/good players (which can be exclusive btw) live, or at least go there to have fun (I’m farming my nuke achievements in tier 3, because it is more relaxing than tier 4 or 5.

 

You are a casual player with average skills. Nothing to say here, it is ok.

 

People is trying to help you to “git gud” so you can carry some games, win more, and so enjoying the game.

 

You said that you don’t want to “git gud”

 

Then it is ok, you are a casual, you can’t carry games, so you have to accept that your W/L ratio will be average, since you will depend on your team to win or lose the game.

 

And by the way, there are games when no matter who you have in your team. You will lose. Specially in tier 3 where games are usually bigger, and a single ship is less important in the whole game.

 

If having fun for you is winning games, then you should “git gud” to be able to carry or at least help carry more games.

 

If not, then you shouldn’t care. Some times the good players will be in your team, some times they won’t. As easy as that.

26

Allow newbies to progress faster! As I said above, the problem with tier 1 is not its low difficulty. The problem is that I can’t skip the boring crap if I already have basic skills or am a quick learner. As far as I understand, the main game begins with tier 3. It took me 200 damn hours to get to the low end of it. NOT GOOD! The lowlevel progression is way too dragged out. Tiers 1-2 should be an introduction, and nobody likes 200-hour-introductions.

 

I created a few newb accounts for the purpose of building it up to 3 maxed out t2 ships, to try to get some of my freinds to play. I can do this in about 2 to 3 hours of game play.

As a vet who knows the game, I was able to do it about an hour, but I went about it the long way.

I maxed out each ship as I went along, and it still took me one session.

 

My main account it took me 2 evenings to get to t2, but that was backin 2013, I was a total newb then.

 

With what was done to player protection at this time, your only shot now is to grind T1 away is PVE.

I guess not all newbs are created equal.

 

There is alot that needs to be undone and done to make this game a drug that hooks everyone. Many of us have been saying the same things forever, but this one detail isn’t one of them. The grind in the upper teirs is where the most complaints fall in.

 

Mono crystals is the most extremily unbalanced part of this games economy, next to the gold prices.

27

You like this game, but you are about leaving it because you have reached tier 3, where many veteran/good players (which can be exclusive btw) live, or at least go there to have fun (I’m farming my nuke achievements in tier 3, because it is more relaxing than tier 4 or 5.

Actually, the fact that there are 80% veterans at tier 3 is not the reason why I am demotivated. And it’s not the reason for my friends either.

If you really want to know, here are our reasons:

  • seeing all purple in the death recap (he didn’t complain about the pilots having more skill, he complained that there are only maxed-out ships around)

  • getting low efficiency rating even when the game and personal performance went really well (makes him feel useless even if he did a good job)

  • battle result screen doesn’t tell us anything about individual performance, which means there is absolutely no way to analyze the own performance or that of other players

  • open space contains many restrictions and alot of punishment, while offering minor or no rewards

  • PvE missions are few and repetitive (no dynamic factors like random spawns or random side objectives)

If you only look at the surface, it may look like the high veteran ratio is the problem (in PvP), but really, it isn’t. It is a symptom, not the illness. The illness is a group of design issues that result in a very low player retention. From what I have seen, the core PvP has been improved over the years and is working well. But we loose too many players before they reach the core game. That results in new problems of course, but those problems are second generation ones, not first generation.

Star Conflict has a very good basement and there are several cost-efficient ways to improve the floors above the basement.

 

I created a few newb accounts for the purpose of building it up to 3 maxed out t2 ships, to try to get some of my freinds to play. I can do this in about 2 to 3 hours of game play.

My main account it took me 2 evenings to get to t2, but that was backin 2013, I was a total newb then.

Yes, for a veteran going through tier 1 is actually relatively quick and easy (and boring if you do PvE missions). In fact, I was surprised how quick I was when I did it with newbie friends. That is a good sign and shows that player skill progression works.

But tier 1 is the entrance hall for newbies, and newbies take alot longer than 2 hours, especially when they want to do what the game tells you to do: leveling up 3 ships at the same time. Two evenings sounds about right for getting one ship to tier 2. This is in line with the experience I had from 3 of my friends so far, and they all had prior experience in similar games and are above average players. And six sessions with tier 1 PvE missions - EVERYBODY falls asleep there! It’s perfect for the first 3 or so matches (for each mission). But after that, it dull. And by that point, not a single one of my friends was out of tier 1, not even with a single ship.

 

A common sentence was “This is the game? It looks great, but plays… eh, not so exciting”. And I had to reassure them several times that the game will be actually interesting once they reach tier 2. 4 out of 5 friends would have left or did leave and came back. And that was with playing together. Solo players are alot harder to keep. So I stick with my statement that tier 1 feels too boring.

28

There are actually some ship builds that let a casual player be good and winning games easier.

 

A pilot can just use these builds and does not have to be good and still can beat good players easily. Developers could for example set these builds as presets.

 

For example a command ship can simply stay near the group and use all four area buffs. If its in trouble it can use the “panic button” and get a diffusion shield up, best combined with energy increase modules. As weapon phaser is very easy to hit if u get projectile speed up. You can actually sit there in many gamemodes and just press buttons and still contribute lots.

 

Same goes for the LRF which can get invisible, the guard with destructor or the Recon which can just capture beacons. All these ships with proper builds need only some tactical combat awareness to function, but no aiming skills, no fast reactions and no teamwork.

 

For Tier 3 is suggest using the Styx. It is very difficult to fly bad in a Styx. I really think if developers would just give the casuals some well functioning builds like these and not the random crap it would be much easier for everyone.

29

Got to agree with the above. If all you’re after is efficiency, there’s a lot of easy ways to get it.

For example, the Speed Tackler. Get a Hyena, slap a Cruise Engine on it, use Sentry Drone, Heavy Sentry Drone and two slowing modules, then go nuts with the rest (I personally like to increase sensor range, reduce lock-on time, use regenerative coating and, of course, try to keep my energy nice and high). Why is this build great for new players?

 

  1. You can outrun practically anything. Seriously, my Eagle B’s top speed caps out at less than my Hyena! When you can outrun interceptors, you won’t be dying so often!

  2. Because you’re stupidly fast, you can capture beacons quickly. Again, in my Hyena the only people who get to beacons before me are Recons who microwarp there.

  3. Drones are easy kills / assists, once you work out where to put them. Hint; heavily contested beacons, or close to big brawls! Put them somewhere the enemy can’t shoot them due to focusing on more important targets and they’ll do wonders for you.

  4. In Detonation, even when carrying the bomb, you can outrun most enemy ships.

  5. Your debuffs give you easy debuff assists. See an enemy on low health? Debuff him and land a free 20 efficiency!

  6. If things go south, you can cloak and run away.

  7. Because you’re so damn fast, you can pretty much cross half of the map before your cloak runs out - perfect for finding a friendly engineer, or a nice quiet (and unguarded) beacon where you can regroup and plan your next move.

Now I’m not saying that Cruise Hyena will put you on the top of the score board or win you every game, but if you’re looking for a ship that will let you do a bit of everything, you could do a lot worse. Just make sure you turn off auto-afterburners or you’ll be dead in the sky.

30

you don’t have to be pro to be decent. i’m always happy when i get ppl who are decent on my team. 

 

Decent means:

 

pulls own weight

kills more than dies

goes to right beacons

covers team mates and protects engi

can aim decently

 

that’s not hard to achieve.

Bot Susan: 

 

-Pulls own weight.

-Goes right to beacons (and every other objective including the enemy team)

-Covers a team mate

-Has aimbot

31

Bot Susan: 

 

-Pulls own weight.

-Goes right to beacons (and every other objective including the enemy team)

-Covers a team mate

-Has aimbot

 

You missed one: “kills more than dies” ^^   I think that is her only problem

32

Not being able to upgrade is a bit annoying, but in the context of a free to play business model I can see why it is there.

Everytime I re-read this whole thread, I get stuck on this sentence. We always add this. Our understanding. Me too, usually.

But truth is, if you look at other lasting and successful games doing f2p

(e.g. ones that have playermarket systems like warframe so you have paying and playing playerbases,

or are pretty enjoyable and steadily unlock stuff like lol or heroes of the storm, where you have the feeling you don’t play a f2p game at all),

I start to believe, this is one of the self-restraining arguments we should not bring up anymore.

Truth is, exactly because we always “understand why this has to be” is a lie.

We don’t, we just assume, that some of these restrictions work on others, while it does not work on ourselves.

That it might be necessary to balance out all the players who do not pay, that we understand everyone has to eat, while we do not even know if there is a problem.

It’s a loving and compassionate attitude but ultimately it’s naive and might not help to realize the real dilemma for both sides.

Having slow progression and unlockable fast progression just does not work properly on the long run. That’s my theory.

Skins, Colors, Customization and Personalisation would work great, but you are hesitant to buy them, if there is so much other stuff, your GS could do for you.

I wondered how lucrative for me the large 35€ bundle became in hots just after two days of playing, while it seemed, i would never really need to spend any money just to get my stuff, nor planned to spend much time there.

Just because it would give me the feeling i support the game and have quite a collection of cool skins and heroes from the start.

I wonder that in Eve, some people spend hundreds of dollars for a friggin monocle that they can slap on their character profile picture but gives them no other benefits,

and still how people throw the money willingly to island, so that they can even produce high quality fail titles as a hobby, next to their main game without breaking a sweat.

I do not even think they would need their subscriptions to keep it running, they just keep it because they can; in fact, there are more plexes ingame, than actually players using them or there would not be a market.

that means, there are already payed months of subscription lying around in the game. That’s how friggin rich they are.

If progression would be around what it is with the premium license by default, the premium license would be even more lucrative, not less.

And that’s the point I would start from, if I would rethink the system, as publisher.

We, the players, repeatedly give testimony, how much potential SC actually currently already has.

Even if we debate on details.

And just for the record: I already am at endgame, so it’s not just my own personal interest here talking.

33

I agree with many of your points, but there are things you’re simply underinformed about.

Actually, the fact that there are 80% veterans at tier 3 is not the reason why I am demotivated. And it’s not the reason for my friends either.
If you really want to know, here are our reasons:

  • seeing all purple in the death recap (he didn’t complain about the pilots having more skill, he complained that there are only maxed-out ships around)

First of all, do the math and see for yourself what exactly the difference is between a purple gun and a green one. Depending on the weapon (whether it is meant for burst damage or pressure), it varies from 5 to 7% or something around that. It literally means that someone with an Mk. 4 gun can potentially kill 5-7% faster than you. Your aim is incomparably more important than the level of your upgrade.

 

Things are different with active modules, since they also involve recharge times - but even then you can simply hover your mouse over the upgrade button and see what exactly changes and at what rates, with each consecutive upgrade, so that you can estimate your priorities. I still run with some green stuff just because I don’t need to level it immediately and find the current stats of a mod satisfactory enough, even though I’ve already earned a couple millions of synergy points on a maxed out, yet partly green ship.

 

This leads to another point - if you find T3 so frustrating, don’t play it. That’s what I did when I started. I was good in T2, then I got this awesome Silent Fox and tried to be a hotshot in T3. It’s simply not doable. On that screenshot you provided, I’ve noticed you do the same mistake. Rank 7 ships are currently useless, simple as that. Max out that Katana and that Hawk-Eye in PvE or using free synergy; that Anaconda of yours, even though it’s r8, sucks balls too. And for the love of God, if you want to play with a friend who has only T2 ships, don’t play T3. That’s almost an insult to the rest of your team, really.

 

Go back to T2, find out what your playstyle is, get your vouchers so you can immediately upgrade what you want in T3, and when you feel confident enough, try T3 again, that’s how it works. Only then will you be able to comprehend why you die or why you fail to kill; reducing it down to “omg i suck so much” won’t let you improve.

 

 

  • getting low efficiency rating even when the game and personal performance went really well (makes him feel useless even if he did a good job)

  • battle result screen doesn’t tell us anything about individual performance, which means there is absolutely no way to analyze the own performance or that of other players

 

Actually, this game has a remarkable efficiency system. With a few exceptions (like guarding a beacon you were too slow to cap in time, or killing someone who would have otherwise inevitably killed your captain) you can surmise that if someone has low efficiency after a match, they were useless. You’re rewarded for following objectives of a match. Cap beacons in beacon games, kill and don’t die in TDM, kill and defend in CR, plant bombs and kill enemy bombers in Detonation.

 

  • open space contains many restrictions and alot of punishment, while offering minor or no rewards

This I agree with and before I hit T4 I couldn’t see any fun in Invasion, either. Now I enjoy it, and although the rewards still seem modest, they are useful later on. Just check how many monocrystals you need to craft your own ship and you’ll learn to appreciate what little you’re given for flying around in open space.

 

Also, avoiding all those OP mobs makes some good practice for PvP, surprisingly. Seriously.

 

  • PvE missions are few and repetitive (no dynamic factors like random spawns or random side objectives)

 

This is true for 4-9 (although if you play with your friends so often, you could just create a custom match with a particular mission, which makes things more interesting), and while the missions for 10-15 are similarly repetitive, they’re much, much more difficult - up to the point that you get frustrated at your teammates wasting your time. If you’re looking for the fun factor in PvE, use squishy ships for that… that’s what I do at least.

 

 

 

Also, I’ve had my own share of complaints regarding the matchmaking system, and it’s still far from perfect, but I have to give it to the devs that they do try hard to make it better. Seems like there’s a major change to how opponents are chosen every two months or so, so there’s that… I highly recommend you just drop back to T2 and get better in a more mistake-forgiving environment. You’ll get vouchers, you’ll get free synergy, you’ll get credits and your stats will hopefully start to mean something that resembles your actual in-game performance.

34

 

That’s the core problem of this game - the very low playerbase. From that, matchmaker can’t make decently balanced teams.

 

If MM has found say, 10 people for a matchm it should presumably be able to distribute the vets and Aces evenly between both teams though.  “Bestplayer goes in team A.  2nd best goes in B.  3rd best goes in B, 4th goes in A… etc”. 

35

If MM has found say, 10 people for a matchm it should presumably be able to distribute the vets and Aces evenly between both teams though.  “Bestplayer goes in team A.  2nd best goes in B.  3rd best goes in B, 4th goes in A… etc”. 

 

Define: “best”.  People who can carry their whole team?  MM already does that.

36

Waow *u*

Someone that have the same issues that I encountered! :DDD

I readed diagonnaly throught the multiple posts and I do agree with you.

 

I do have an idea for each Tiers being fair for new players and veterans: reworking the ship tree.

I have currently 3 solutions but the third first is my favourite: [check my post here](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/27997-a-ship-tree-an-crew-operation-reworked/)

Yes, with this idea you will be able to fly a silent-fox again in t3 like you can fly a hyena :slight_smile:

 

Also, for new players I have made a quite famous (wasn’t really good at the first release but is okay now xP) tutorial that took its time to write: [here](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/27936-im-a-beginner-better-read-this/)

Yes, it do need to be in-game.