Karlotta is on the money with a lot of this. Rules and regulations need to be streamlined and presented in a much better format, as does the lore background for the game. Noobs, almost like children, need to be cherished and rewarded with interesting gameplay and RP in this world we've all built if we are to retain them and make them vets.
We can't gate off the fun. I'm not saying hand out caps and millions of credits, but this could be more a matter of being proactive in including and teaching new players.
Being involved with quality RP, and being friendly and understanding to one another is probably one of the greatest keys. There's a lot of unnecessary rudeness and callousness I see, and I don't think the people behind the screens are nasty, but there is a bit of a defensive/offensive culture here.
Mutual respect and kindness, and dedication to making quality RP and putting it out there for the "world" to enjoy on the forums and in game will help propagate the environment we want to see.
(03-15-2018, 11:33 PM)Omicega Wrote: At least the system bloat is a problem that's relatively easily fixed - archaic, awkward, and frankly user-hostile game mechanics like the ones Karlotta mentions will take a hell of a lot more effort.
There is an even easier way to fix "system bloat" than removing systems, presented here. That requires no re-location of the necessary missions, equipment, ship, or commodity sale points, or removal of explorable or eye-candy content.
As for solution to the other problems, some require effort, others very little, and yet others none at all (the later in particular from the community side):
1. Little thought for noob progression put into gear balancing.
-bring back the aux slot and nerf the ridiculous sidewinder that triggered the removal of aux slots (little work if undoing a change is little work).
-make the cheaper armor upgrades more effective without raising their price. (Requires changing 7 numbers, so almost no work)
2. Overly strict Tech nerf ruins the gear-gathering repping gameplay they're used to and came to expect from Vanilla.
-remove power core penalties between all friendly or neutral factions, and make ID repninjas so that it becomes necessary and possible to bribe/do missions in order to get better gear from allied/neutral factions. Basically adjusting some numbers. A bit of work adjusting numbers, doesnt have to be done all at once but gradually.
3. Noobs don't win PvP. Ever. Balancing and unwritten rules make sure of that.
-See point 1
-Just STOP with your hypocritical anti-gank pro seal-clubbing BS "honor" unwritten rules that make siding with noobs in number and shipclass balanced but not skill-balanced fights impossible. No work required. Stopping with the BS will even save you "work".
-provide more ingame help to make working with noobs easier because you wont have to explain every single thing by typing it out yourself (point 5)
-Make official factions accept and teach noobs, and let them fly caps too as long as they also agree to train in snubs. Almost not work, only the "work" of being less of a prick towards noobs
4. Missions are unpredictable and hard, especially when playing alone, like most noobs play in the beginning.
-More anti-fighter missions. Less missions that are totally impossible for fighters. Make missions available in the same or very nearby places, to make it easier to find people willing to do teamwork in missions.
5. Game mechanics and rules are hard to learn for lack of proper ingame help.
-I finished it already doing most of the work, with help from about 10 proof-readers. Takes about 20 to 30 minutes of work to import it into the mod now.
6. Faction restrictions and mining mechanics make everyone create 50 chars they constantly switch between, making it anonymous, poorly RPed, little identification with chars/ships, and hard to makes friends.
-re-balance mining bonuses so there is a 70% 85% 100% bonus difference between indy, second best faction(s), and best faction for each ore type, instead of a 30% 50% 100% difference like it seems to be now. It's just stupid to force everyone who wants to mine to make at least two chars before they become remotely efficient. To prevent char-spam, chars should be versatile with decent capabilities in more than one respect. (Takes editing of a few numbers).
As for why this stuff hasnt been done long ago, people can only speculate because devs and admins never explain why, and when they do they're not very good at defending their arguments. There may be good reasons for it, but as long as no one tells them there's the impression that they just don't care about noobs and even have a silly sort of contempt for them (which was exhibited by many devs and admins before they became devs and admins), or because they're too proud to implement any idea that didnt come from themselves. To be fair, people throw out a lot of ideas they think are great, without helping to actually implement or explain those ideas properly. Maybe that makes interacting with members very frustrating so devs/admins resign from trying it.
There has to be a clear path for new players to take.
What i remember from my early days was something like.. when a new player joined forums and posted welcome message, they were immediately picked up by LN or LPI. I think it was someone named Zapp or Zepp that picked up a lot of new players around liberty, showed them around the place, they'd go on patrols with LPI, and learn a lot then be free to branch off. Or vice versa, an obviously new player would be seen in penn or new york not knowing what to do, and pirates would have them jump on board the growing mass of pirates gathering on a lane. Then the LPI bumps into us and etc etc...
However, we don't have the amount of vets to be able to do this. So we need to automate it more. Like.. when a new player joins the forums, they get a welcome message with perhaps a list of things to initially do. This would include different links such as an intro tutorial (a broad one explaining things like the story thus far, with links inside pertaining to different factions and such), other useful links like the reset list, and a discord link. And from the discord, there should be a section such as "getting started? click here" which can have people that would like to offer help, a pre-written message regarding factions and maybe who to talk to.. etc etc..
That's kind of the general idea. THEN when we have all that down so new players have a clear laid out path, we work on an advertisement campaign which i already have some ideas about. But for that to happen we need 1 link to be able to give people that would captivate them and show them the gist of things. And from there they follow the path on the forums and wind up in the discord thus are able to talk to people and get more details.
Does this make sense? Is this agreeable to people?
If so, i would recommend the admins gather up a team of individuals that can plan all this out, and work with whoever owns the forums these days in order to get it implemented.
What do you guys think? I might make a separate thread for this.
EDIT: I think karlotta has some good ideas there worth considering. Is there any chance an admin can give their opinion on what we're discussing here? That would be much appreciated.
(03-16-2018, 02:32 AM)Death.RunningVerminator Wrote: What i remember from my early days was something like.. when a new player joined forums and posted welcome message, they were immediately picked up by LN or LPI. I think it was someone named Zapp or Zepp that picked up a lot of new players around liberty, showed them around the place, they'd go on patrols with LPI, and learn a lot then be free to branch off. Or vice versa, an obviously new player would be seen in penn or new york not knowing what to do, and pirates would have them jump on board the growing mass of pirates gathering on a lane. Then the LPI bumps into us and etc etc...
Faction leader Zapp (LPI) was a cool guy, Ophidian (Order) was a cool guy, Panzer (=CR=) was a very cool, Jack Henderson (IMG) is a cool guy, and the Junker Congress who ever was in charge at the moment were all cool guys when it came to the treatment and welcoming of noobs. It probably depends on the year, and I'm not up to date because I dont play much anymore, but many other official factions... cough cough LN SOB 101st LSF Phantom Keepers Reavers cough cough... were not cool at all towards noobs. Officialdom should probably be linked to how well a faction treats noobs, instead of putting up standards for them that make them reject noobs. People can always be carefree pricks (which is a totally ok gaming style as long as it affects the entire mod/server so much) on their invite only UNofficial factions that dont get extra rights. I proposed this many time in the past, but maybe people are finally starting to recognize the problem now.
(03-16-2018, 02:32 AM)Death.RunningVerminator Wrote: However, we don't have the amount of vets to be able to do this. So we need to automate it more. Like.. when a new player joins the forums, they get a welcome message with perhaps a list of things to initially do. This would include different links such as an intro tutorial (a broad one explaining things like the story thus far, with links inside pertaining to different factions and such), other useful links like the reset list, and a discord link. And from the discord, there should be a section such as "getting started? click here" which can have people that would like to offer help, a pre-written message regarding factions and maybe who to talk to.. etc etc..
That's kind of the general idea. THEN when we have all that down so new players have a clear laid out path, we work on an advertisement campaign which i already have some ideas about. But for that to happen we need 1 link to be able to give people that would captivate them and show them the gist of things. And from there they follow the path on the forums and wind up in the discord thus are able to talk to people and get more details.
Does this make sense? Is this agreeable to people?
If so, i would recommend the admins gather up a team of individuals that can plan all this out, and work with whoever owns the forums these days in order to get it implemented.
What do you guys think? I might make a separate thread for this.
Sure go for it. As long as it's done by people who know what they're doing and who are interested in more than shining their halos and flashing their angel wings. It should be kept in mind that no one, including noobs, likes to be strangled by people who try to force them to do stuff that they say is for their own good, but which isnt any fun at all.
(03-16-2018, 02:32 AM)Death.RunningVerminator Wrote: EDIT: I think karlotta has some good ideas there worth considering. Is there any chance an admin can give their opinion on what we're discussing here? That would be much appreciated.
Experience shows that they're not very willing to do that.
Before expecting a useful response, you should probably be more concrete than "lets get together and do good stuff" though. There are 20 such posts/ideas per day.
Well i'll be totally honest then if the admins post and say something like how they're open to the idea, i'll make a thread and go in-depth. However if they say no its not gonna happen or along those lines, i'd probably just either leave again or invest very little time here. I am prepared to invest a lot of time cause this is a great place a great game and i'd wager great people too. And i want others to experience that. The RP possibilities for people that like fantasy, sci fi, rp, are just so astronomical it's great. And more people could appreciate that. Which is why we should have a system for them in place to get antiquated to things.
But if admins are totally opposed or aren't open to the idea, forget it, it's too far gone and not worth recovering.
Before anyone can say if the idea is good or bad, you'll have to be more concrete than "useful stuff will pop up when people join the forum" and "something captivating will be presented".
The hard part is even getting people interested enough in the mod to join the forum.
The hard part is finding exactly the useful stuff that should pop up, and how to present it.
The hard part is finding exactly what will captivate people, and how to present it.
Before one can say if the idea is good or bad or worth doing, you're going to have to say how exactly you wish to accomplish the hard parts. If you do it poorly, its not worth it. It's only worth it if you do it right.
(03-16-2018, 12:44 AM)sasapinjic Wrote: It is endless circle, as long things will not change, AALLLLLLLLLL those Biter-veterans refuse to log-in, and, in same time, people in charge dont give a damn and stubornly refuse to change things.
That is an issue. So-called 'bittervets' who don't log but unfortunately jump on every forum thread to lower the tone. I'm not particularly sure why. There's no fun to find in the game by simply harassing the community.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
We have the material available to us already. Videos, the RP, summaries, etc.. Disco isn't for the average call of duty player. It's for people that are ALREADY interested in RP and sci-fi. It's a matter of getting to them and presenting them with what we can conjure up.
And karlotta i dont have all the answers, what i would do is have a team that would come up with ideas together. However my main thing is having a button on the forum like the returning player button except "getting started?" and we'd go from there.
Oh, yeah. I forgot to even mention the trainwreck of a wiki that Disco has going for it as well. It's so out of date and barebones that it's not even funny, it's just tragic.
I cannot name a single game-with-roleplay-elements-attached that I've played where I didn't check the wiki obsessively to learn how things worked. Imagine trying to do the same on Discovery. You'd either give up out of frustration or make the best of the dumpster fire as it currently sits and wind up with entirely the wrong idea about more or less anything.
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