Free Allegiance Forums

bigbellydude wrote:QUOTE (bigbellydude @ May 29 2012, 03:06 PM) Forgive my ignorance, but when was the last time somebody asked Microsoft for the drivers keys, so to speak? Maybe that would help with the development of the game. All the "popular" games have ongoing and visible development cycles.

And I am not volunteering at this time (RL), but I think we would start seeing a lot more players if we actually worked on SEO and the website more. Let's face it: this site is so 1990's...

umad?

The only reason you're not seeing much Exp is because it is usually a poor tech path if you don't have the people to utilize it effectively. Sup and Tac are much more effective with an average skilled team whereas Exp is really good with a good team but sucky with a bad one.

Like I said in the other thread, there are too many better and more polished alternatives out there. Not that Allegiance isn't a great game, but it's learning curve is even steeper than LoL's or HoN's plus you don't get that kill first ask questions later gameplay that people expect. In Alleg, you have to roll around in figs for 15 minutes, then you get some nice @#(!, but then you have to push cons, research tech, etc. It lends itself more to drawn out games. People don't want that.

The information for prime time game hours should be tatooed on the giant breasts of a scantily clad female anime character, riding on a Dreg Scout.

Heyoka wrote:QUOTE (Heyoka @ May 30 2012, 09:04 AM) The information for prime time game hours should be tatooed on the giant breasts of a scantily clad female anime character, riding on a Dreg Scout.

On a rix scout!

Heyoka wrote:QUOTE (Heyoka @ May 30 2012, 12:04 AM) The information for prime time game hours should be tatooed on the giant breasts of a scantily clad female anime character, riding on a Dreg Scout.

this approach works for nudegirlsrandomfacts

also, i think sumv could do the artwork. Or at least, make the same artwork he usually does but this time with a purpose!

'The most "new pilots" come not in the enjoyment of the game, as they have inter alia no partner to play - thus unable have "poised" to understand how this here so-called space shooter by giving goes.'

They leave because Allegiance is so very difficult to learn. Simple as that. The pain of the learning curve outweighs the pleasure of the game. The newbie's experience is not knowing what's going on, not knowing what needs done, and desperately searching for some way to contribute to the team without screwing it all up. And that's if the newbie is a smart one. The problem is magnified when the only available games are very small, so a newbie mistake hurts the team much worse than if it happened in a large game.

This is the most difficult game I have personally ever attempted to learn. I might not have stuck with it this far if I hadn't briefly looked at Allegiance a few years ago, and saw how much fun this can actually be. (That first time around, I left because I was unfamiliar with how very rude people can be in online PvP. Since then my skin has thickened quite a bit.)

My few videos successfully got several people to try Allegiance, but to my knowledge not one actually stayed with the game. I'm very disappointed about that.

To somebody brand new, the conventional advice has always been to either go drop probes everywhere or babysit the miners with a nan while the vets do everything else. But in a small game - which is very likely the only kind of game a newbie will ever see - that advice is flawed. The small game requires every player to be able to rapidly switch between multiple roles.

The learning curve is the killer. But we don't want the game to get dumbed down. What would be the point of playing then?

I remember seeing one suggestion in another thread... people were talking about a kind of "good ol' days" core, with just the original four factions, but rebalanced. I like that idea. I like the notion of some means of limiting the incredible amount of trivia we have to memorize, but without dumbing down the core skills needed to play.

White Owl wrote:QUOTE (White Owl @ May 31 2012, 12:22 AM) The learning curve is the killer. But we don't want the game to get dumbed down. What would be the point of playing then?

I remember seeing one suggestion in another thread... people were talking about a kind of "good ol' days" core, with just the original four factions, but rebalanced. I like that idea. I like the notion of some means of limiting the incredible amount of trivia we have to memorize, but without dumbing down the core skills needed to play.

Actually, some "dumbed down" cores already exist. For example: the Star Wars Core. Only 2 factions (Rebels and Empire), and I think they have equal tech. Played it a couple of times, and can be fun. Unfortunately, someone decided it was cool to remove them the boosters...

Anyway, probably the Star Wars Core can be much more "newbie friendly". At least it is something more familiar they can relate to. But most veterans scream in horror when this core is being played.

Well, you won't save Allegiance by retaining more players when the real issue is the number of signups crashing.

But that aside:
1-Reducing complexity without dumbing the game down - very tricky but there is some doable stuff, mainly by exposing more information to the interface. In-game context-sensitive help (such as pop ups) would also help a lot. We can also do a few core-side things such as reducing damage/armor classes but that's not going to help much on its own. Finally a better command interface, maybe a mission interface will add more structure to the games and give the newbies the answer to "what do I do now".

2-Ensuring more balanced games. There is guaranteed to be some work on this post-ACSS.

3-Reducing down-time between games. One idea is a facility to pre-schedule games as we discussed which will probably happen, the other, which ties is with #2 is a commander election + team-pick interface built into the game.

Maybe they wouldn't be leaving if we had more "why are new players leaving?" threads.

This has been posted how many times? Over how many years?

Quit chasing your tail.