#Reducing the gap between new players and "veterans"

138 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

lime nova
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In a previous thread there was some feedback based on this move widens the gap between new players and veteran players.

I think that rather than focusing on we can't do that because it increases the gap lets think about moves that can also decrease the gap. I have a few possible suggestions to start.

  1. Increase the base value of lower tier items.

  2. Add new player boosts, ie. 50% xp for 7 days, 25% sale bonus - things to this tune, have this recurring if a player reaches level 30, 50.

  3. Offer the ability to buy pre-levelled racks / bins(either for gems or real money)

  4. Some games (I know WoW does this) offer a larger pack that unlocks expansions up to 9 and boosts to level 60.

  5. Add a new player content pass with a free reward track and a paid reward track, both offering decent rewards to get players started.
    6. Kajah - t13 4/18/23 — Today at 1:56 PM
    Another massive way to reduce that gap is to help new guilds gain boosts and perks faster. New players often start in new guilds.
    Feel free to add to this, just a few ideas off the top of my head.

lethal latch
lime nova
lethal latch
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Only one of those Blitz Passes, but it's a start

glossy salmon
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All for this

noble spoke
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#4 wouldn't work since you'd be lv60 with unleveled bins and stuff, like I do get you want to speed it up but a lot in the game just takes time to grow with you, buying preleveled racks and bins with gems is a golden idea tho imo

glossy salmon
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I believe Clash of Clans offers catchup mechanics as well

glossy salmon
lime nova
noble spoke
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how would you calculate what bins at what level a lv60 needs or is supposed to have

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and how many of each

lime nova
fathom violet
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Another massive way to reduce that gap is to help new guilds gain boosts and perks faster. New players often start in new guilds.

lime nova
noble spoke
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yeah but there are already too many guilds out there so controversially I'm all for making guild growth a bit harder cuz I swear like 1 in 3 newbies start their own guild

crystal vessel
fathom violet
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I agree with you, and they do it anyway. May as well support their natural choices to help them get to the end game in the way they seem to want to do.

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I would prefer they all just hop in pre-existing guilds, but that suggestion falls flat a lot

crystal vessel
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Side note: creating a guild should cost gems, say 5,000.

That will stop creation of new guilds and encourage existing guilds to adapt and grow.

Then a system like Kajah suggested would work perfectly.

lime nova
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I will try and add any addition suggestions to the main post, i doubt the devs read the whole chat so.

fathom violet
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I would love it to cost gems to make a guild

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A weirdly subtle and probably over complicated method could involve a guild gaining bonus renown for “time in service”. Since its creation

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It would incentivize people to find those old “dead” guilds and dust them off instead of making more

crystal vessel
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Definitely a good suggestion, paired with a gem fee to limit over-creation of new guilds.

Marries up with the over-arching topic too

uncut depot
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Honestly over the last few years new players have recieved alot of Catch up mechanics. I honestly dont know why people keep asking for even more catch up mechanics.

glossy salmon
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I generally agree but I think with some of these additions it would really help reduce the argument of the rich get richer and allow for more time and energy to be spent elsewhere

lime nova
uncut depot
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1 Honestly pointless unless everything else scales. 2. Main reason why people quit is cause the diffrence between 1-59 is so steep between 60-99 and it feels like a grindfest so wouldnt really wanna make it even steeper, 3. could be an option. 4, How would you even price that? 5. could be intresting but do you really wanna overload new players with even more content?

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Like endgame for shoptitans is content barren

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But as a new player the ammount of content you'll be facing at once can already be overwhelming.

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Hence why they put events behind a level wall

glossy salmon
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I feel like the endgame is bare because they still have to cater to newer players and it pulls time away from adding new content for those who've been around a while or play a lot. These are suggestions. I'm not sure if anyone here can speak to the exact implementation of the ideas as we ultimately have no input on how it gets handled or rolled out. 1. allows to level faster and earn gold quicker 2. not sure how it makes it steeper. from what i understood, it is a boost that scales so it allows lower lvl players to level quicker. 4. who knows? thats not for us to decide. 5. many games have new player perks because they understand it can be a daunting task to join a game several years late

uncut depot
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Beetle going from lvl 1-50 will be really quickly but as you probs experienced before the grind from lvl 60 is Horrid XD

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the pace would be way diffrent if 1-50 was made faster

dusky plaza
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👀 what grind? Lvling is fine in this game, just takes time, nothing difficult about it just time consuming

uncut depot
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Once you hit the level for endgame content yes its just time consuming. But being locked away from optimal heroes till you unlock t12 can be rough and can feel restricting.

dusky plaza
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😉 it's a path we have all had to walk, at least it doesn't stop at t8/t9 anymore and you have higher tiers to look forward to

naive gust
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The suggestion of costing gems or incentivizing new players to join established guilds has been widely supported by most people who have been in the game for any decent amount of time- it is something that is spoken about in wc often as well.

I think this also would be helped by guild finder working properly which has been an issue for a long time.

uncut depot
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I just recall the lvl 60 - 63 grind to be quite unpleasant but i was withholding level progression due to Epsilon tower so yea. (Mainly spend my first 1.5 years in shoptitans as a market player)

dusky plaza
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Guild finding system does desperately need fixing for new players 100%.

I'd love to see an option for guilds to be able to take in "apprentices" until a certain lvl/invest/nw, but I imagine that'll be a very tricky thing to implement without people finding ways around it.

weary flax
uncut depot
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I was just saying that this game has been designed to go swiftly from lvl 1-55 ish and after that it gets more and more grindy wich isnt an issue.

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But speeding up the initial 1-55 will make the grind that will come inevitabely even more "in the face"

weary flax
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Like every other mmo or rpg or game with a leveling system in it lol.

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There comes a sense of accomplishment with leveling at higher levels

uncut depot
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389 673 300 xp is needed to go from lvl 1 to lvl 55 from lvl 55 - 56 is 70 442 000

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If you have a boost during ur first 55 levels for example

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It could work as frustrating if you spend 1/4th of the time you spend getting to lvl 55 in order to get to lvl 56

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Its ok as it is now we dont need to increase the gap.

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thats all im trying to say 🙂

lusty wagon
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Well, XP you gain increases too with new tiers you unlock granted not nearly as much as XP needed to level up so after 60 slowdown is definitely noticeable

uncut depot
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A 50% xp boost to roll out with just seems a bit too fast for early game leveling as they will feel the increase of XP required even more than they would now.

weary flax
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Maybe xp boost scrolls that can be activated as you wish?

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Aka after level 55

uncut depot
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Could be a cool adition ! 😄

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Im not against an xp boost. Im just against putting new players in a quick xp gaining high for them to quit once they hit the low / slow progression.

weary flax
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Makes sense. But majority of people who play games where you can level know that it gets harder as you get higher. I understand that you’re saying by giving low levels a boost, you get them to the inevitable grind quicker which may deter them.

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I get what you’re laying down scrag ma boi.

uncut depot
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When i was still lingering in a massive alliance the ammount of people that dropped out of the game between lvl 60-65 was nuts. Idk if thats still the case but we had weekly dropouts in a 5-7 guild alliance.

lusty wagon
upper hearth
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Lock guild creation behind gems is a good idea, but shouldnt be more than 300 or so, maybe 500? More than this is just silly

wary badge
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Locking guild creation behind gems is a lovely idea.

tall walrus
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New 'daily event' geared towards lower level players with one or some of these suggestions would be an easy, non-permanent way to implement this.

Call it "All About That Base" and double base values (base gold value, exp) of T1-T10 items for 24 hrs, maybe run it a few times per month. Wouldn't be level locked, but limiting it to generally lower tiers would make this a de facto bonus to the lower level population that needs a catch up the most.

dusky plaza
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Limiting it to t10 would actually be a great idea with this, as even double exp of a t10 wouldn't be anyway, shape or form enticing for a higher player with t12/13 access, but would greatly help the lower/newer players catch up.

The only negative part or this, is you know market players will try optimise prices (rightly so) during these mini events, and in turn quite possibly make it off-putting to newer players.

It's extremely daunting for new players in any game to play "catch up" when it's not a game with servers released often and everyone is starting at the same point. Prime example, guns of glory, new servers release often and everyone who joins them starts from scratch.

uncut depot
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Double money from a t10?

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Would be grinded the fluf out of for late game players that love surcharging

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1 950 000 for a Milestone reached Opulent Elixer 2x = +- 4m double enchanted like 4.2 4.3m ? 2x = 8.6m for a t10 surcharge cost? 😛

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Opulent grasp boosts it to like 2.2m base value

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4.4 *x 8.8 + enchant / spirit

lusty wagon
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is catching up really that bad though? early levels are definitely easier now than they were in past. We got more events, there's stuff like talent trees and there's way more lower tier gear with 2nd stat (that matters a fair bit for progression since it's easier to upgrade gear than reroll heroes early on) and bunch of lower tier items sell on market up to 10x due to champ requests or being precrafts
only thing that hasn't really changed much is the xp gain but with easier access to gold one could buy highest xp value for their level items, enchant them and sell in shop at the cost of losing some gold in the process

Kinda hard to gauge stuff like that since you can't start fresh to experience early levels again.

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I guess catching up in levels will always be an issue, but after a point levels don't really matter much at all

uncut depot
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My wife somewhat recently got back into the game with an relatively new acc and the game isnt super grindy compared to what it used to be when i started.

lusty wagon
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back when we had 0 major events, good ol' days 😂

uncut depot
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I cant even recall if we had events back then XD

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I think i started arround the time t8 released and i think Lilu?

lusty wagon
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LCoG with this one was the 1st iirc

image.png
oak lotus
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that was the first, and you had to get 40k points in 48 hours to get it. which then got made a lower amount the following LCOG because so few guilds completed the event

wanton tide
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i think polonia would be the one you're thinking of, as Lilu is an OG champion

oak lotus
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polo came later

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we got rudo around the same time as t8 coming out!

wanton tide
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😮

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rudo --> polonia --> hemma --> donovan --> bjorn?

not sure where to put ashley. i'm guessing either after polonia or hemma 🤔

uncut depot
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Just checked a possibly not allowed to mention site and found out my starting date 😄

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03/09/2019

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3 september 2019 🙂

lusty wagon
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anyway, back to topic, imho biggest setback for new players is time you need to spend upgrading things
sure there's a paid option of bard for 2x upgrades at once and gem rushing.

uncut depot
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i'd say majority of the holdback for new players is not knowing what to focus on at wich stage.

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I recall myself struggling with this and Collectionbook wasnt even a thing.

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I need better heroes to clear dungeons, to get gear you need money, to get money you need to clear dungeons to craft higher tiers etc etc

warm tusk
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I love catch up mechanics in a game. I think most of the ideas in this suggestion are workable with the webshop where they wanted to experiment with higher gem packs anyway.

The bard is already a great start but it has a draw back that players have even less gold/gems to put towards investing in lower levels since upgrading 2 furniture at the same time will go fast.

I would love to also have a f2p option. Maybe lowering the level requirement on unlocking crafting slots, hero slots, hero recruiting, etc would work. But that does have the same problem as the bard where you will spend all your gold on upgrading you account and not invest in the early game play.

crystal vessel
naive gust
drifting needle
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One way to do it is to introduce gems that cannot be used in market, and give a ton to the newer players through the blitz system.
There's a bunch of progression boosting things already in place for gems (rushing furniture, hero skill rolls, gemming chests for shards), as long as these 'newbie gems' can't be used for the market, it'll help them catch up without completely tanking the economy

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And on another point, it might trap people to buy gems when the newbie gems run out, lol.

lime nova
warm tusk
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That would be a great idea!

steady flicker
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What if they remove the level requirement for everything like expansions hero slots craft slots etc. up until you get to the point where you need level X to unlock more using gold.
Yes gold will still be a barrier for new players but it will be the only barrier. So a dedicated new player can get up to perhaps the mid or early late game point. Allowing new players a faster way to progress definitely helps.

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I actually don’t recall how long it took to get to level 60 ish or how long it took to reach 10g

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But making it quicker for new players to reach that goal or another arbitrary goal helps a lot

olive egret
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that's a cool idea

raven gull
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I really like the idea discussed for gems for guild creation. I feel like 5k is a lot though. With the already existing oversaturation of guilds we're looking at a value of a lot of real money for each one now. This will make new players more likely to join old guilds, but might lower the incentive to merge because it'll be disbanding the old one. Maybe find a middle ground between the 5k and 300 in here? I feel 1k is reasonable

steady flicker
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What if it made it more difficult for them to get into a guild? Because what all the current low/newbie guilds get filled. A new player most likely won’t be willing to use gems. To start a newbie guild for players less than 1 month into the game

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I guess the in that scenario they could wait for a spot to open in one of the lower guilds as people get further outpacing their current guild it is very common to want to move up guilds as older players retire which is inevitable so you’ll get a change of players filtering up

fathom violet
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For that to work there would need to be an auto kick guild feature if offline for x time. That would make space in all low guilds over time

steady flicker
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Actually now that I remember a lot of low guilds under the 10g total from all have a lot of sleeping people they just can replace them

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Well from what I’ve seen

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Maybe I’m seeing a disproportional amount of guilds like that

pure minnow
fathom violet
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No, they are just most likely to see it on average.

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Im talking about like 60 days of no log in. Something that suggests they are out of the game totally.

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That “dead” guild with its bonuses would be a great boost to new players as a launching point.

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But if everyone in the guild is gone, it just bricks it up forever

pure minnow
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I never used the guild search much so I am totally inexperienced. But I guess I am no longer considered as neither “new” or “low level”.

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When I was in my 40ies i was handed over a lvl105-Guild with a total investment of 12G and 9 of them belonged to a player which went inactive when all the usual members left elsewhere - it took us 3 months if I remember right to replace that player without dropping buildings. Fortunately for us a lot of that investment was concentrated in one building.

crystal vessel
raven gull
lime nova
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Maybe it's better to level lock guild creation. Once you reach 50 for example you unlock the feature. Until that point they could possibly implement a guild auto fill feature where they basically just bang new players into auto created guilds

lime nova
fading hull
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The reason new players create their own guilds is because it is hard at low levels/investment to find an active guild. The game has a clear early/mid/late game so it is fine if there are guilds for each stage, the problem is keeping them active. Imo they should improve the guild finder function, show more guilds and only active ones somehow.

valid kernel
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I think another reason that is being overlooked is that a new player may pick up the game with a group of friends and they may all want to play in their own guild and grow it from scratch. Making guild creation inaccessible to new players would be very off-putting to those types of people.

The only reason I started playing was from pressure of irl friends that wanted me to join their guild to help them progress. They have all retired since, and I have moved on to other guilds, but I literally would not have been here if they were not able to make their own guild in the early game time frame.

wary badge
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there are just too many guilds

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people create one just because and abandon it

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one off does not mean all

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maybe it just need to be more clear you do not have to make a guild

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New users have to understand it is more beneficial to join an active one

steady flicker
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im not sure what the suggested guild feature is like because i have not had one be suggested to me for quite some time

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maybe thats is why people make a lot, they cant find a guild when they are new new

real python
fathom violet
real python
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They are completely offline until they have finished their thesis. It's too important for distractions.

fathom violet
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Well, thats a choice they made. I'm confident for every person like that there are exponentially more that could use a slot in a dead guild to grow faster.

upper hearth
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If they would choose to have a gem barrier for guild creation, then it shouldnt be more than 500 gems absolute max, more than this is just silly.

200 gems is costly enough to be fair

noble spoke
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200 gems is a single event easily

upper hearth
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Exactly, but its still premium currency

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You still need to spend it on that instead of something else

crystal vessel
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It’s supposed to deter the creation of guilds.

Most games wouldn’t allowed guild creation for a new player anyways.

As a new player you’re given plenty of gems, I think it should be at least 1,000 personally.

With that in mind, the guild finder needs to be fixed up.

wary badge
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I do not agree on 1000 but Totem is absolutely correct