Quote:
Originally Posted by GReaper
I think MrLobster is on the right tracks - the game was fun ~9 years ago, however in that time so many other games have raised the bar.
|
This is exactly right. I signed up last round after a hiatus of some 6 years or so. I was surprised how little the game had changed, compared to the other games out there of the same genre. We signed up with a group of about 15 vets as the "Old Phartes Alliance", some of whom had also played... if you can't keep a group like that, you're in serious trouble. We're not playing r31... and haven't decided yet if we'll ever play again. So what went wrong?
Quote:
Originally Posted by GReaper
Figure out the fun parts of the game and improve them, find out the shit parts of the game and eradicate them. Try and figure out what makes the game demoralising for some people as well.
|
The fun parts are obvious: friendly interaction with other players. PA is currently so hideously geared towards old players at the expense of new (or returning) ones it's ridiculous - just look at these forums. There's a sub-forum specifically geared towards players who are quitting but nowhere is there a HELP forum for newbies to ask questions without being flamed! There is too little reason to stick with your gal mates right now, I'd suggest more salvage for in-gal defence or something. The alliance size is also a big problem if you want to attract a group of players - unless they're signing up in groups of 50, they don't stand a chance without smaller alliance limits.
I've also noticed that players who sign up late tend to get SK sent at them within a few days of leaving protection. WTF is that about? SK are a big joy-killer. Losing roids is one thing, you can steal 'em back. Gaining roids helps you but SK'ing only hurts your target, so should only be used as part of a big alliance war imo when you really need to stop an enemy rebuilding. Random noob bashing with SK makes me angry. My point is that to reduce the unnecessary SK'ing, why not make the % of buildings SK'd reduce the possible roid cap? This would make using SK a strategic decision, rather than simply something you can just tag on to a roid fleet.
Some aspects of the game are also very out of tune - I'm looking at Covert Ops mainly, but the same also applies to SK. PA is all about escalation. The biggest fleets at turn 240 would be laughable at turn 2000. Even scanning escalates through the race of distorters vs amps. But not Cov Ops. There is never a reason to train a large force of CovOp agents, and you'll never inflict a significant amount of damage on an enemy fleet with them. Make them worth using, or remove them entirely. Newbies just get pissed off by trying to do stuff with them and failing miserably, wasting research time and resources in the process.
Finally, look at improving the descriptions of ships/fleets etc for new players. They shouldn't need to delve into mathematical formulas in order to decide what factory to build! The whole "first impression" of PA is bad, it's not a game you can simply sign up to and say "ah, yes, I see how you play this..." which will drive away a lot of newbies.