Milestones?

(Bluesquid0630) #1

I was thinking, one of the things that might turn newer players away from dirty bomb may be the grind that comes with it. Now veteran players may earn credits at a consistent rate but newer players usually have a harder time. ive always had this idea since the implementation of arsenal crates, that every few levels (say five for example) will reward a player with a merc crate instead of the traditional crates were used to. This would roll a random chance at getting a merc that you don’t own. i don’t know, would this be a good thing to add to the game?

(Press E) #2

I’d personally like something like that, but I can see the draw of having prices on mercs.
Having to grind for mercs means people more closely consider which mercs they buy. People are less likely to randomly switch between mercs, and more likely to learn the ins and outs of that merc before moving on. It also means there’s stuff to work for for a long time, and players don’t run out of things to spend credits on as quickly.
However, I do think the grind is a bit much, but there are benefits for it none the less.

A milestone system could be great though. Rather than a random RNG case every time, it would be nice to get something different every so often. Maybe not a random merc, but something different none the less.

(Noir) #3

What if we gave a special item to players hitting LVL 50-100-150 instead of giving items that you pay for to new players who will probably leave before they hit LVL 20 and never spend a dollar in the game?
I just reached LVL 100 and recieved a crafting kit. I was happy.

(Bluesquid0630) #4

@DefaultSettings said:
What if we gave a special item to players hitting LVL 50-100-150 instead of giving items that you pay for to new players who will probably leave before they hit LVL 20 and never spend a dollar in the game?
I just reached LVL 100 and recieved a crafting kit. I was happy.

Still a bit steep. I’m only at lv 30 but I’ve been playing for more than two years. The thing is, with the games slow leveling only a small portion will ever reach that high. You have to understand many of us don’t have time to play the game as much. Though dedicated and avidly following (like me) some just can’t keep up. I’d recommend cutting your “every 50 levels” to every 25. This would push newer players to strive to hit that rank when many end up dropping the game before level 20.

(Eox) #5

@DefaultSettings said:
What if we gave a special item to players hitting LVL 50-100-150 instead of giving items that you pay for to new players who will probably leave before they hit LVL 20 and never spend a dollar in the game?
I just reached LVL 100 and recieved a crafting kit. I was happy.

Could be trinkets. It’s always nice to get trinkets.

Basically, let’s award a trinket every 25 levels up to 100. Like the current assault course trinkets, they would match the loadout rarity system. Level 25 would award a bronze level milestone trinket. 50 would award a silver level milestone trinket. 75 would award a gold trinket, 100 would be a cobalt trinket. It’s as simple as that.

(woodchip) #6

Noobie rewards need to be improved. 30k credits at level 3 is good. But there should probably also be some kind of get 1 totally free merc system before or after that. The way it works right now you save up 5-10k credits to buy your first guy with the help of the 30k bonus.

Then you are back to needing to grind another 15-20 hours for your next reward. Except most of these players were never grinding: they just picked up DB to give it a shot, and suddenly the next major ‘goal’ is 20 hours of grinding away. That can’t feel good. Remember, new players gain credits much slower than experienced players. Introducing such a giant reward gap at hour 5 is almost asking players to lose interest. At that point most people aren’t invested enough in the game for such a big ask.

I recommend the level 3 reward let players choose from one of the 30k-35k mercs. Maybe just between Bushwacker, Sawbonez, and Rhino. Bushwack and Sawbonez are simple & strong, and Rhino is the kind of undertuned splashy merc that is both fun to play and fun to have in a game.

Then, the level 4 reward should be a good bronze card for their newly unlocked merc. Not just bronze, but an iconic and strong loadout.

The arc of making your choice of role, and then getting an awesome unlock for your choice is a strong reward loop that helps players identify with their chosen merc.

Then maybe level 5 or so you get 25k. You’ve got maybe 5k saved up at this point, so you can spring for one of the 30k mercs, but you already had a shot at them, and naturally are more interested in the more expensive guys. So then you spend another 4 hours to unlock the extra 10k for Nader or what not.

After your first game with Nader, an iron card for her drops. Because if you have no loadouts for a merc that always happens after your first game with them.

The specifics of this obviously don’t matter much. Just an illustration of how engaging rewards at every step make a big difference in new players sticking around.

The fundamentals of reward design are:

  1. Next reward is always just over the hill. You should always be 75% of the way towards getting something.

The next reward is not just over the hill for new players. It’s 20 hours away. The arsenal crate system more or less accomplishes this for very experienced players who hit 20k points a match. Still needs work.

  1. No feelbad rewards. It’s ok to have some rewards be better than others, but rewards that are basically worthless or otherwise produce a real negative / disappointment reaction should be avoided. Rewards that are so weak you wouldn’t have done the task if you knew you were going to get them are ‘feelbad’.

There are tons of feelbad rewards in DB. Noobies especially are introduced to the random case system by getting a bunch of lead cards for mercs which they not only do not own, but in most cases don’t even want to own and are anyway literally 30 hours of grinding away. Now that just doesn’t work. Getting a Silver card for a merc you don’t own might create a nice interesting loop where you then spend the time to unlock that merc and feel good after. Unlocking a merc just to access a lead card is a completely dysfunctional reward loop, so those lead cards are just about literally worthless psychologically.

Lead cards in general are just feelbad rewards. BAD DESIGN.

  1. Rewards should be random.

Basic addiction psychology tells us that unpredictable rewards reinforce behavior more than predictable rewards. If we ‘buffed’ normal cases by increasing the rewards 100%, but then removed the randomness so that you ‘earn’ the cobolt after your 500th case, people would play a lot less.

So this is one thing DB gets right.

  1. Rewards enhance players-character identity.

The strongest reward moment players can have is getting the awesome item that supports exactly their style of play. If I like Kira, I’m going to be especially engaged with the game when it gives me a Kira reward. Both because that’s what I especially want, but also because I now identify with Kira even more strongly. And identifying with a character is one of the strongest bonds players have with games.

So it’s good that cases are random, but it’s bad they are also so random that they don’t really enhance player-character identity. Having cases be perfectly random over the entire merc roster is weak for this reason. It makes item drops feel like 1.0 Diablo 3, where items dropped perfectly randomly, which was quickly changed to system 2.0 where items were heavily biased towards the characters you play.

When you give players a ‘once in 100 hours’ reward like a Gold card, you want that to really energize them. It should be memorable. Way more likely to do that if they actually play that character.

  1. Extra reward is necessary when intrinsic reward is low.

Having extra rewards when new and losing I already rambled about. When you go 5/25 as a level 3 there absolutely must be an exciting reward just over the hill or that player is gone. It doesn’t matter how good a game is, if you are getting crushed and there’s no light at the end of the tunnel most people don’t stick around.

From reddit:

This game really grows on you. self.Dirtybomb

“When I first started playing this game, I didn’t think much of it. It seems like a generic, but quirky, shooter. Over time, I began to love all the little details of it, the voice overs, sound effects, the graphics and aesthetics, etc.
I just wish 2 things would be done… I wish there were more operators. And I wish we could get more skins and load-outs. I feel like I just get one iron/lead load out after another. These are really my only two recommendations.”

Says it all.

So DB doesn’t really follow the reward principles that are now standard in most AAA F2P games. Doesn’t matter whether you’re playing Heroes of the Storm or Civilization 6 or League of Legends or Paladins, you have constant feel good rewards just over the hill for the first 5-10 hours at least. In gameplay terms, these top games are about as good as Dirtybomb. In player pop terms they beat DB by 20-100x. Paladins especially is a cheaply made, barely polished obvious overwatch mimic with solid but completely unexceptional game design. It has 40k concurrent players a day, in part because it does rewards very well. You unlock 5 Paladins heroes in the first 10 hours, for instance.

It hurts, because DB is such a fundamentally great game. But somehow they haven’t implemented a modern reward model. Don’t worry about giving away mercs for free. It takes around 500 hours to unlock all of them; engaged players will still pay to speed that up. Engaged players will still pay for cool cases. More engaged players >> slightly more things to buy.

Eox’s notion for prestige like trinkets is also a good idea.

(kittz0r) #7

what harder Times do new People have with earning Credits? I can’t remember to get anything for Free back in may 2015 or have several Credit Boosters etc available.

SD might should all Mercs and Trinkets for free to new Players, so they stay 2 more levels and maybe even reach level 10?

Yea, or People start to play the Game instead of only caring for some free or easy stuff

#8

Individual merc rotations and temporary renting for credits. Been mentioned a million times and I’d love to see it for new players. Leads to more interest and revenue for them, no doubt. Many new players would then have more accessibility to mercs they otherwise wouldn’t be able to experience initially if they’re not in rotation. Also, mercs that have already been unlocked by said player should not be in rotation.

(TepidJesus) #9

@woodchip Never ever say “Let new players choose” and “rhino” in the same sentence, it gives me nightmares at the thought that being released.