Brink Barrier To Entry Retention Fix/Idea

(wolfnemesis75) #61

The Sniper Warriors have returned to Brink from otherland. You know who they are. Sometimes half a team is infested by them. They stay next to spawn all map and snipe across with very little effectiveness, but stubbornly continue on with this tactic the whole game.

Rather than cave-in and shoe-horn TDM into Brink, I’d rather see a mode like Proving Grounds added to Brink that still functions as an objective team-based focus, but gives players who are set-in their ways, and thus become an annoyance to their team mates who are trying to play within the system, a place to go to play to their hearts content however they want. And other folk who wish to do similarly, just to kick back with their friends and get some kills, can do that and still progress through the objective levels.

The black star surrounding the class icon denotes their killer instinct. (UBCA) :slight_smile:

(DarkangelUK) #62

Heh I’m beginning to think Wolf has me on his blocked list, cos he seems to ignore everything that I say… either that or his therapist told him it’d be easier to ignore it all :smiley:

(wolfnemesis75) #63

Why would I put you on my ignore list, Dark? The stuff you say is so childish its hilarious. Every single one of your posts in this thread totally misses the point and is aimed at attacking me rather than just making suggestions or asking questions that are irrelevant. The OP lays out the intent of this thread, and everything outside of that is out of my control. I don’t make the game, I just play it. Nobody has to listen to what I say or do anything about it. It is a suggestion.

I neither make games or want to or even tell people how or what they should or should not do or what the game should be. I am only making suggestions. I just like the game and have fun playing it. And so do many other people. So, this thread is aimed at newer players. Which is not you or I or anyone else on this forum most likely.

The best contribution you made so far is the thread with videos showing cool moves in Brink. Something positive. Yay. Its soooooooooooooo easy to be negative and point out the faults with Brink. But after awhile, its like picking on the kid with one leg. We get it, he has only one leg. Lets help him walk instead of laughing at him. :slight_smile:

(.Chris.) #64

(DarkangelUK) #65

In all honesty m8, it’s you that’s missing the point. You JUST got finished saying that steamrolling the other team is causing them to quit and leave… anyone with the brain capacity resembling a cabbage can see that the problem lies with the gameplay itself, and no amount of changes done to the menus is going to fix the ROOT of the problem. It’s the game itself that’s chasing them away, what’s hard to understand about that??

But since you’re not ignoring me, how about answering these. Where is this influx of new players coming from, and how many do you project there will be? How many new players on a month to month basis justifies this change? How many of those players will need something like this to keep them there in the 1st place? What percentage of player retention justifies the effort put into something like this? There are far more important things to be done that would make the actual game experience better for the players and would help a lot more than rejigging the menus, what should be sacrificed in place of changing the menus over?

I also like how my replies are childish, yet you struggle to answer a childs questions? :wink:

(wolfnemesis75) #66

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;375045]1.)Where is this influx of new players coming from, and how many do you project there will be? 2.) How many new players on a month to month basis justifies this change? 3.) How many of those players will need something like this to keep them there in the 1st place? What percentage of player retention justifies the effort put into something like this? 4.) There are far more important things to be done that would make the actual game experience better for the players and would help a lot more than rejigging the menus, what should be sacrificed in place of changing the menus over?
[/QUOTE]
1.) I don’t have a count of how many players there are, I can only go by how much of an increase has happened, which is very noticeable since the game got discounted and AOC. I’ve been playing nearly every day and am a member of many forums. I’ve seen many new posts by new players who like Brink on these forums, have seen many new faces and gammertags when playing, and matches fill up within seconds or a couple minutes at most, where-as before it may have taken 1 whole match of Terminal before it was full or half full. AOC, Pre-order DLC, and discounted Brink price seems to have brought a much larger influx of players back to Brink. Xbox of course. :slight_smile:

2.) Not for me to decide.
3.) I have no idea.
4.) In your opinion. Not mine. The menu is half-used. Currently. I would not be surprised if some are ignorant of the Stopwatch Mode selection, for example. Its not idiot proof right now. Too many redundant selections.(I think SD call them buckets?) IMO.

These are my suggestions. I’m worried about the new guys, not people that been around the block so many times, they can pick out a Strogg from a Marine in the pitchblack of night and with their eyes closed. Not sure what else you want me to say, dude!

(DarkangelUK) #67

I’d rather you put your efforts towards the areas that will actually help reduce attrition instead of blaming superficial menus and refusing to accept the main focal points of concern. I can safely say I’ve never stopped playing a game based on the way the menus are laid out, and I think you’d struggle to find anyone that has. Run polls on various gaming websites asking why players left Brink and what they think could have been improved to keep them there. Build an overall picture then narrow that down to key areas of concern. Once you have your main areas and reasons those are key trigger points, THEN come up with work arounds or fixes that would lower or even stop attrition all together.

Shouldn’t be too much for a hardcore fan, apparently I’m a ‘hater’ and ran data analysis on 50 threads to track down key fault areas for PC… jussayin.

(wolfnemesis75) #68

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;375048]I’d rather you put your efforts towards the areas that will actually help reduce attrition instead of blaming superficial menus and refusing to accept the main focal points of concern. I can safely say I’ve never stopped playing a game based on the way the menus are laid out, and I think you’d struggle to find anyone that has. Run polls on various gaming websites asking why players left Brink and what they think could have been improved to keep them there. Build an overall picture then narrow that down to key areas of concern. Once you have your main areas and reasons those are key trigger points, THEN come up with work arounds or fixes that would lower or even stop attrition all together.

Shouldn’t be too much for a hardcore fan, apparently I’m a ‘hater’ and ran data analysis on 50 threads to track down key fault areas for PC… jussayin.[/QUOTE]I don’t play on PC. And the majority of players who play Brink don’t either. This thread was made by me, and not you, hence why it offers suggestions based on what I feel. And the thread does seek to reduce attrition and improve retention.

All we can do is make suggestions. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone’s head to play the game, stick around the forums, or be hardcore. Its all choices and what’s the best ways to help improve the game. I am trying to come at this from a different angle. That’s all I can do is make suggestions on some work-around fixes with what Brink is currently.

There’s already a sub-forum for weapon tweaks. Which also includes ability tweaks.

There are tons of PC specific threads and criticism. Perhaps post in those forums if you run out of suggestions in this one. Its not like you are 100% wrong about anything, is the point. You may be 100% right about everything, especially from your own perspective. For those who play Brink a lot and still have fun with it, and for new players, perhaps something positive can come out of some ways to lower the barrier that may exist for new players or players not accustomed to this type of FPS gameplay. Ya dig it?

(wolfnemesis75) #69

(Summary Version) of this Thread and it’s goal

[ul]
[li]Lower barrier to entry for new players and players not accustomed or as familiar with Objective Team-based FPS gaming without totally compromising the objective and team focus. Lower Attrition and enhance retention. [/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]Consolidate the modes and streamline the experience[/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]Offer a mode that allows causal players to warm-up to the objective-based gameplay but limits the package of useable abilities so other modes aren’t ignored [/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]Add in an area for battle-tested teams so it limits pub-stomping and Team Balance issues.[/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]Limit the number of divided community feel with redundant modes with subtle differences[/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]Consolidate menus and scoreboard to ease transition of inviting friends, creating matches, etc.[/li][/ul]

[ul]
[li]Bring Stopwatch mode more in focus so it gets played more often and by more people.[/li][/ul]

(DarkangelUK) #70

Who said anything about being PC specific? Who mentioned anything about any platform? Do you just read what you want to read and not actually what’s on the screen? Considering ANY changes will be universal and not platform specific this type of issue is global… players are being lost across all platforms, regardless of what you think. By the fact menus are different on PC than they are on the console, yet attrition still exists, than that makes it obvious that it’s not a menu problem. In fact the PC menus are probably far more accessible than the console, yet that has the highest attrition of all. By the fact you can instantly recognize when a gamertag is new or old should be a testament to that. Logical thinking… try it.

But ok I’ll say what you want me to say, because me adding suggestions seems to have thrown you for a loop and you seem very confused.

“Too late for Brink, menu changes won’t happen, if they did it wouldn’t help as the gameplay is the issue and not the menus” - DarkangelUK

Happy?

(wolfnemesis75) #71

[QUOTE=DarkangelUK;375052]Blah Blah text which misses the point wide of the mark. [/QUOTE]Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat? You are getting discombobulated again. I added bullet points to this thread to present the aim in a more streamlined way. (see what I did right there? )

Thanks for your comments again. Any comments are helpful at the end of the day, even the ones aimed solely at me so it makes me add bullet points. :slight_smile:

(tokamak) #72

I don’t think nobody is opposed to the idea itself. The idea is as old as the forum itself and ranked matches have been often suggested.

They just won’t ever solve the ****ing problem.

(DarkangelUK) #73

Lol if you think my posts missed the point, that means you’ve got no idea what your point is… nice :smiley: But I do like how one of your suggestions means fracturing the already small community as it is, then in the same breathe say reduce the community division… that’s an awesome idea that one!

(.Chris.) #74

[QUOTE=wolfnemesis75;375051](Summary Version) of this Thread and it’s goal

[ul]
[li]Lower barrier to entry for new players and players not accustomed or as familiar with Objective Team-based FPS gaming without totally compromising the objective and team focus. Lower Attrition and enhance retention.
[/li][/ul][/QUOTE]

The proving ground may be a solution for this but honestly I think just making the game more polished on released would have made half of those who left stick around for a few gameplay tweaks.

[QUOTE=wolfnemesis75;375051][ul]
[li]Consolidate the modes and streamline the experience
[/li][/ul][/QUOTE]

Any more streamlining and we will have TRAMS.

[QUOTE=wolfnemesis75;375051][ul]
[li]Offer a mode that allows causal players to warm-up to the objective-based gameplay but limits the package of useable abilities so other modes aren’t ignored
[/li][/ul][/QUOTE]

The challenge mode is already that, perhaps if they were some maps made bit more ‘life like’ to reflect the real maps more than it be better.

[QUOTE=wolfnemesis75;375051][ul]
[li]Add in an area for battle-tested teams so it limits pub-stomping and Team Balance issues.
[/li][/ul][/QUOTE]

Isn’t that was matchmaking is for?

[QUOTE=wolfnemesis75;375051][ul]
[li]Limit the number of divided community feel with redundant modes with subtle differences
[/li][/ul][/QUOTE]

Can’t answer this, seems to be console thing?

[QUOTE=wolfnemesis75;375051][ul]
[li]Consolidate menus and scoreboard to ease transition of inviting friends, creating matches, etc.
[/li][/ul][/QUOTE]

Same as above.

[QUOTE=wolfnemesis75;375051][ul]
[li]Bring Stopwatch mode more in focus so it gets played more often and by more people.
[/li][/ul][/QUOTE]

What’s point of this when the game isn’t suitable for stopwatch?

(wolfnemesis75) #75

[QUOTE=tokamak;375055]I don’t think nobody is opposed to the idea itself. The idea is as old as the forum itself and ranked matches have been often suggested.

They just won’t ever solve the ****ing problem.[/QUOTE]Thank god you admitted that! Holy ****! I have as much control over what gets done as you do! ZERO! Other than making a suggestion! They’re working on the weapons. At FACE VALUE it looks like they’re trying and ARE interacting. WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO DO? Come over to your house and massage your feet so you feel comfortable playing Brink? :tongue:

Gee whiz. :eek:

(wolfnemesis75) #76

[QUOTE=.Chris.;375057]The proving ground may be a solution for this but honestly I think just making the game more polished on released would have made half of those who left stick around for a few gameplay tweaks.
Any more streamlining and we will have TRAMS.
The challenge mode is already that, perhaps if they were some maps made bit more ‘life like’ to reflect the real maps more than it be better.
Isn’t that was matchmaking is for?
Can’t answer this, seems to be console thing?
Same as above.
What’s point of this when the game isn’t suitable for stopwatch?[/QUOTE]Moral of the story: Nobody owns a time machine.

Proving Grounds would act more like Challenges only with all the maps. A true co-op experience with less barrier to entry.

Matchmaking doesn’t offer a place technically for Clan/Team specific groups. Currently it puts everyone in the mix. BUT. This creates inherent problems because of the extra steps necessary to lower the barrier. Not happening currently, and the game encourages and reinforces that your flat-out goal is to stop the other team. Potentially squashing the oppositions fun factor.

The point is Stopwatch works currently, it just may not be sexy enough or noticeable enough the way its buried in the menu.

Brink could have one menu which is the Scoreboard where you can change the map type and do everything! I know WHY it doesn’t. BUT. It could be pared down and consolidated at bit more. Thus adding a way to incorporate a Team Clan Section and a New player friendly Section like Proving Grounds. Instead the Rank system tries to separate new players, but once you can make new characters, this playing-field-leveling becomes a moot point especially when you have the default now as My Rank or Higher.

This is what I have found after extensive play time. 250+ hours. :slight_smile:

(.Chris.) #77

There’s a multiquote button now you know?

Stopwatch works currently? Really? Thought we went over this to death else where, to cut a long story short, defensively biased maps don’t suit stopwatch.

I’ll take your 250+ hours played and raise you 8+ years.

(wolfnemesis75) #78

Thanks. Just figured out how to do it. You are in trouble now, dude. :slight_smile:

Every mode is Stopwatch. (Or essentially functions as a One-Round version of Stopwatch)

Playing Brink. 250+ hours playing it. :slight_smile:

(Humate) #79

You’re correct, stopwatch isn’t idiot proof.

(H0RSE) #80

I have done it numerous times, since I started playing RTCW.