Thanks for taking the time to reply. I made those suggestions more along the lines of just trying to find a way to bridge the gap between advanced players and new players together on the same team. You've seen the problems it causes.
New players don't like being new, confused, and frustrated at holding back the team. And I consider myself experienced, and I'm happy to work with new players (I want them enjoying the game the first time they play it rather than being yelled at. Because I hated getting yelled as a new player.) But I'll admit, first thing I do is check global stats to see if there's a player with a string of zeros. If so, I'll sigh and think "Well, no chance to win this game. Time to teach. I hope someone drops to give me an excuse to drop too...I'm tired of teaching." That's where a lot of the suggestions of very basic training tidbits, or separating people into insane and easy groups came from. In hopes of preventing some of this.
The other part just came from a disconnect in the game's branding and what you hope people get out of the game. The game seems to want perfection and exactness, and rewards are given for those who study it out to a ridiculous level. So naturally, people want this kind of perfection among teammates. Then I read your comments, and I see a different picture in your ideals. You want people to be more laid back about the game, to not take it so seriously, and to be nice and train new people or let them experiment at the cost of the rest of the team wasting time and not winning. You seem to get frustrated at people leaving if the team isn't great, but you reward wins with new races and special unlocks. So the suggestion of posting your philosophy or giving an unlock for niceness was two attempts at addressing what I think is an issue.
Great ideas. Love the voting. I feel that niceness should happen. but unfortunatly the problem isnt the nice people...its the dicks..Some of the ideas you have about helping players that are new to vexal is a great idea!
KEEP VEXAL ALIVE! Its a fun game and great entertainment!
Thanks. But it is Vexal's game, so he can ignore all my suggestions. I've never made an SC2 map, let alone one that gets to the first or second page (which tells me Vexal is doing many, many things right that we don't understand). I just know that it's not possible to please everyone. I once took over a massively popular Mozilla extension a few years back (on the scale of millions of downloads). Trying to listen and incorporate everyone's ideas is a mind numbing task. Even for the simplest of things. And some ideas are just downright stupid or increase scope far, far beyond anything practical or that you have time for. Fortunately, I didn't get too many people yelling at me...because it's an extension, not a team based game. :)
I do love Vexal TD though. I really like the game. I find it surprisingly balanced and meeting a lot of Vexal's goals. I hope it keeps getting better. I just hope that somehow the game can be tweaked so social groups in the community are managed well (i.e. jerks are punished or persuaded to be nice, advanced players don't have to wait for 10+ games to find a good group, new players can play together and enjoy learning together, etc.)
So why not directly address this in the design? This attitude of gamers has been around for decades. Just work with it instead of fighting it.
You put a ton of quality work into balancing, good explosions, the math for build orders, removing cheesy/buggy strategies, etc. Many things about the game are surprisingly precise, and demands refining strategies. Plus you get awards for beating the game on Insane, and even another award for getting 2 million kills. It takes about 20 times or so before you find a strategy that can work, and many more games before you know how to balance it with what your partners on your team are doing. It's only natural that the most OCD and perfectionist jerks are going to flock to this kind of game. That's not going to go away.
I see you've started fixing that. Things like letting people choose their preferred order prior to the game starting. Wonderful change. It stops a lot of pre-game hopping and whining.
Here's some other ideas you could do:
Let people vote on the difficulty, and assign teams accordingly. If enough people want easy, send them to the left side. Everyone else wanting insane or chaos goes to the right side.
Just drop things that aren't used and infuriate people. Nobody wants to play team mode. So why not get rid of it? That would save several early round "ARGH! TEAM MODE!? I'M OUT YOU NOOB HOST!"
Put a note on the load up screen explaining your philosophy. It's surprising how much people will follow an author if the philosophy of the game is laid out. Something like: "Hey, I just want this game to be fun. I think fun games should mean that you'll lose 95% of the time, so don't get upset if you do. Also, if you're OCD or a perfectionist jerk, go away, we don't want you here. The rest of you, enjoy. If you are new, ask for help. If someone else is new, be nice and help them out. If there's a bug I caused, then blame Blizzard, they're an easy scapegoat. :)"
If someone hops into a game with only a few stats, give them helpful messages. "You appear new. It's a good idea to look at the towers carefully and ask your teammates what you should build." Or "You are anchor. Unless you really know what you're doing, humanoid is a good choice for the race in this spot."
Take out the confusing flavor text, and add in strategy text "Marines are great for the first several levels. They shoot air and ground. After that, their attack damage is too weak to really do much..."
Heck, you could even implement some kind of niceness voting system. And give some award/unlock feature for a high enough niceness score. If people are mean, they can be voted down, and have their unlock taken away.
Anyway, I'm just another fan giving advice. Feel free to ignore it. It is your game after all. I do have a blast with this game, and I really enjoy it. I think it's the best TD I've ever played. Despite it driving me crazy so often (Argh, I can't have my lava attack my towers anymore? I'm going to hunt Vexal down and kill him!)
0
@Vexal: Go
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I made those suggestions more along the lines of just trying to find a way to bridge the gap between advanced players and new players together on the same team. You've seen the problems it causes.
New players don't like being new, confused, and frustrated at holding back the team. And I consider myself experienced, and I'm happy to work with new players (I want them enjoying the game the first time they play it rather than being yelled at. Because I hated getting yelled as a new player.) But I'll admit, first thing I do is check global stats to see if there's a player with a string of zeros. If so, I'll sigh and think "Well, no chance to win this game. Time to teach. I hope someone drops to give me an excuse to drop too...I'm tired of teaching." That's where a lot of the suggestions of very basic training tidbits, or separating people into insane and easy groups came from. In hopes of preventing some of this.
The other part just came from a disconnect in the game's branding and what you hope people get out of the game. The game seems to want perfection and exactness, and rewards are given for those who study it out to a ridiculous level. So naturally, people want this kind of perfection among teammates. Then I read your comments, and I see a different picture in your ideals. You want people to be more laid back about the game, to not take it so seriously, and to be nice and train new people or let them experiment at the cost of the rest of the team wasting time and not winning. You seem to get frustrated at people leaving if the team isn't great, but you reward wins with new races and special unlocks. So the suggestion of posting your philosophy or giving an unlock for niceness was two attempts at addressing what I think is an issue.
Thanks. But it is Vexal's game, so he can ignore all my suggestions. I've never made an SC2 map, let alone one that gets to the first or second page (which tells me Vexal is doing many, many things right that we don't understand). I just know that it's not possible to please everyone. I once took over a massively popular Mozilla extension a few years back (on the scale of millions of downloads). Trying to listen and incorporate everyone's ideas is a mind numbing task. Even for the simplest of things. And some ideas are just downright stupid or increase scope far, far beyond anything practical or that you have time for. Fortunately, I didn't get too many people yelling at me...because it's an extension, not a team based game. :)
I do love Vexal TD though. I really like the game. I find it surprisingly balanced and meeting a lot of Vexal's goals. I hope it keeps getting better. I just hope that somehow the game can be tweaked so social groups in the community are managed well (i.e. jerks are punished or persuaded to be nice, advanced players don't have to wait for 10+ games to find a good group, new players can play together and enjoy learning together, etc.)
0
@Vexal: Go
So why not directly address this in the design? This attitude of gamers has been around for decades. Just work with it instead of fighting it.
You put a ton of quality work into balancing, good explosions, the math for build orders, removing cheesy/buggy strategies, etc. Many things about the game are surprisingly precise, and demands refining strategies. Plus you get awards for beating the game on Insane, and even another award for getting 2 million kills. It takes about 20 times or so before you find a strategy that can work, and many more games before you know how to balance it with what your partners on your team are doing. It's only natural that the most OCD and perfectionist jerks are going to flock to this kind of game. That's not going to go away.
I see you've started fixing that. Things like letting people choose their preferred order prior to the game starting. Wonderful change. It stops a lot of pre-game hopping and whining.
Here's some other ideas you could do:
Anyway, I'm just another fan giving advice. Feel free to ignore it. It is your game after all. I do have a blast with this game, and I really enjoy it. I think it's the best TD I've ever played. Despite it driving me crazy so often (Argh, I can't have my lava attack my towers anymore? I'm going to hunt Vexal down and kill him!)