Are we growing or shrinking?

[welshy]

I have a lot of folks ask me whether the amount of members in DOW2 Retribution, and in particular the Elite Mod, is growing?

To me it looks like the community is growing, but I don't have enough experienced to really say.

[egewithin]

80% of our community are made of experianced players. That is why new players struggle unfairly in elite mod.

[welshy]

Yeah that sounds about right, from that do you think we are growing or shrinking?

[Cyris]

I think growing. In the last 3 months or so, I've seen more new players around then I have in a while. As mentioned, there are a core of much more expiernced players, so I don't know how much of the new blood will become regulars, but it's overall promising. I feel like the various Steam sales, cards and Sega updates to DoW2 have helped here, as well as continued excellence from caters and youtubers.

Steam stats seem to back me up here, though it's notable that recent numbers are down, and this is retail and ELITE. Still fun to look at though:
http://steamcharts.com/app/56400

[Dark Riku]

80% of our community are made of experianced players. That is why new players struggle unfairly in elite mod.

Where do you get this number from? °_O Don't state your personal opinions as a fact please, that doesn't help anyone.
The statistics posted by Cyris are already a better indicator. To get an approximate number of people playing Elite, we should look at the amount of downloads.

[egewithin]

Where do you get this number from? °_O Don't state your personal opinions as a fact please, that doesn't help anyone.

Well, I can not know how much it is but you can't say it is 50 to 50 . Even if 80% is a wrong number, you know what did I mean there and that was what I wanted.

[Cheekie Monkie]

Over 80% of community members are actually transforming turtles in disguise. However, only 55% have genuine, certified Turtle Power and the statistical discrepancy rises amongst the higher ranks, where only 17% are More Than Meets The Eye.

It's rough to bring in concrete evidence. My personal observations say that there was a huge influx of players following the big patch, which slumped right down to an abnormally low player base, due to what I suspect is knee jerk balance responses, the numerous hotfixes and waning interest in the game as a whole. The numbers seem to have stabilised again, though like the Golden Throne, the mod can only sustain the game, not revive it to its golden age.

[Batpimp]

yes it's growing.

and fira..way to have a (80%?) retard answer to yes or no question.

[egewithin]

retard answer to yes or no question.

As you wish my lord...

Yes ; our community is growing bigger. Generally professional players prefer to play on elite mod. New players rarely heard of Elite mod. In that case, our community is made of pro players generally. That is why I said like 80%. Pro players do not like low level players, specially under level 30 and never let them play in their match which is a reasonble move . So, that makes much much harder to gain experiance in our beatiful Elite mod. They ust open mathces like '' only noobs ''. If a noob is in a normal match, the loser team mates can blame him so easly because of his level. I know that we only care about thier experiance, not themselfs specially but, come on the do mind us. Some of players can became real jerks and some noobs can become really annoying. I have a reeeeeeeeeeeeeal good memory to tell about a noob but for the sake of argument, I will just ignore this.

[Batpimp]

I disagree with you.

and again. throwing out numbers that are based on NOTHING but your opinion is what Riku already said you shouldn't do.

[destructomat]

I'm new; you might see a bit more influx of players like me due to the relic humble bundle a few months ago. I came to elite when I found out relic had bankrupt and thus wouldn't support the game, and would never fix the unarmed HWT issue.

[The great Cornholio]

i would say 80% i way way to high a number.. but that also depends on how you define experienced .. but i see alot of new names all the time so unless people change their names every week we are getting bigga... and bigga is betta

[Sub_Zero]

Pfft, look at it, another unpleasant face from the "charming" boy. Firatwithin never said it was a fact. It is just his personal feeling expressed with a number.

And to that one who calls a person a retard just like that. By saying "That is why new players struggle unfairly in elite mod." he meant that new players received no warm welcome and eventually left this undesired place for them. He meant that the community was shrinking. Do I need to explain how I came to such a conclusion having read his words?

Keep your sharp tongues inside your mouths, ffs... And yeah such a response is adequate when you allow yourselves to speak in such a tone.

[egewithin]

Pfft, look at it, another unpleasant face from the "charming" boy. Firatwithin never said it was a fact. It is just his personal feeling expressed with a number.

And to that one who calls a person a retard just like that. By saying "That is why new players struggle unfairly in elite mod." he meant that new players received no warm welcome and eventually left this undesired place for them. He meant that the community was shrinking. Do I need to explain how I came to such a conclusion having read his words?

Keep your sharp tongues inside your mouths, ffs... And yeah such a response is adequate when you allow yourselves to speak in such a tone.

Thank you.

[enasni127]

i usually look at the steam profile of all persons i play with and so i can say for sure that there are some newcomers which have 10-50 hours of total playtime. the majority seems to have several hundreds or even thousands of hours playtime though. considering that, firatwithin's guessed 80% could be more or less right

i personally feel like we are growing atm and i think that's cause of some steam special offers for the dawn of war franchise. people get the game for little money and check it out - some of them hear of the elite mod and give it a try. i think most of them will quit after some days/weeks and only a few will stay for a long time.

[Jes]

While ELITE is no doubt growing due to 2.4's matchmaking, DoW2 as a whole is bleeding pretty badly.

[KanKrusha]

I have just come back after a hiatus playing and modding Total War Rome 2. It seems to me that in retail there are more games in the Public lobby than there were 12 months ago (this doesn't count match-making games) and certainly more newer players: I even win a game occasionally.

I am in a difficult time zone so there are very few Elite games for me in the evenings but I have seen a few more in the mornings when i am supposed to be at work! It doesn't help that some corrupted games are stuck up on the server permanently so it is a bit hard to count.

This game was always really hard on new players, it is common to get curb-stomped in a very disheartening way and never want to come back.

[[EL] The Emperor]

Also want to point out that the Emperor's Loyalists has been in fact helping the community grow, and in other ways increasing the amount of online matches that take place daily due to the close connections we bring to the table.

I would say from everything that I am currently seeing the Elite Mod community is in fact growing but we need to better reach out to our lower level brethren, and perhaps I daresay even accept them into some of our matches?

I cannot say that my clan has pioneered playing with noobs as we have excluded them from our games, except to observe. But perhaps we would have better turn over rates if we didn't troll them, and we in fact offered them better ways of improving their game. I think a lot of them would greatly appreciate it because the current model of waiting for them to improve their skills in retail, and then transfer over is not working.

[Oddnerd]

I started playing DOWII the day the beta was released, but stopped playing years ago. A year ago I returned to the game and found Elite mod. Between then and now it doesn't feel like the number of players has gone up or down a great deal. There have been a few waves of completely new players who probably bought the game from a steam sale, downloaded elite thinking it was gonna be awesome, and then been repulsed by the skill barrier and the sour attitude.

Its really unfortunate, it might be possible to bring in new players and also bring back old players (who would still retain all the core skills but need more practice), but from what I have seen I'm uncertain this is going to happen.

[Caeltos]

This game was always really hard on new players, it is common to get curb-stomped in a very disheartening way and never want to come back.

Something that I've never really liked about the game, and something I want to address, with full-force at one point in the future.

[DarthMoose]

This game was always really hard on new players, it is common to get curb-stomped in a very disheartening way and never want to come back.

Something that I've never really liked about the game, and something I want to address, with full-force at one point in the future.

I'm curious as to what changes would alleviate the pressure on newer players (Myself included) without in general dumbing down. All I can think of would be each unit being more clear cut as to what it counters, and it's effectiveness against other unit's lessened in some way. Which is the general trend I've seen in the mod for all 2 months I've been here. But I can't help but wonder why that would make me suck less at the game lol.

[SinisterLaugh]

This game was always really hard on new players, it is common to get curb-stomped in a very disheartening way and never want to come back.

Something that I've never really liked about the game, and something I want to address, with full-force at one point in the future.

I'm curious as to what changes would alleviate the pressure on newer players (Myself included) without in general dumbing down. All I can think of would be each unit being more clear cut as to what it counters, and it's effectiveness against other unit's lessened in some way. Which is the general trend I've seen in the mod for all 2 months I've been here. But I can't help but wonder why that would make me suck less at the game lol.

My guess is that Caeltos is planning to do some adjustments to the way multiplayer games are organized, without touching game balance. But I may be veeeeeeery wrong here.

It`s hard to tell if elite mod community is growing or not. But community defenitely benefits from the efforts of streamers and casters and from the projects like Beginners Club (by Welshy) and the like. Videos are drawing attention and nubclubs are helping newcomers (or comebackers) to get into game(mod) and play/practice with opponents/teammates of appropriate skill lvls.

[Sub_Zero]

Thankfully the game does allow to create a lobby with any name. Beginners, newcomers, noobs, nobz, retired vets get back to business, any other name you like. And you can check almost any player's profile (both in game and his steam) to find out how really experienced he is and thankfully there is an option to kick anybody who doesn't meet the requirements. I cannot see what can be simplier and better than that. And I would love if all efforts were focused on polishing the game and not on new players.

If I was a new player I would be glad to get stomped*. You learn faster the hard way. When you hang with conscripts you will not become better.

*I mean if I wanted to play this game competitively in the future, not just spend like 10 hours for fun and abandon it, such players aren't worth the time you would spend on them inventing some special conditions or whatever you have in mind.

[Gorbles]

While ELITE is no doubt growing due to 2.4's matchmaking, DoW2 as a whole is bleeding pretty badly.

I haven't bothered to look up Steam stats, but after getting back into the game(s) recently I've seen a pretty static 1,000 players or so on Retribution as per the main menu lobby chat, which is what it was when I dropped out of playing a year or two ago.

This game was always really hard on new players, it is common to get curb-stomped in a very disheartening way and never want to come back.

Something that I've never really liked about the game, and something I want to address, with full-force at one point in the future.

What options do you have for addressing this? A custom tutorial map perhaps?

[Caeltos]

What options do you have for addressing this? A custom tutorial map perhaps?

A custom tutorial map wouldn't be bad for starters, at least so that players have some idea of what's going to happend when they jump into a multiplayer match. However, if it's not FORCED on the newcomers, this means they'll most likely just selectively ignore it, because they just want to get into the game as fast as possible- which can have negative impact on the players experience.

The way I WOULD LIKE to have approached it, is make it similiar to how Heroes of the Storm handles it. They ask the players if they are familliar with the concept of the MOBAS, however- all players will still undergo some tutorial, however- if you're experienced, you'll do the 3/3 stage of the tutorial, whereas if you're a newcomer, you start from 1/3 of the tutorial phases, so you get as much meat on your bones as possible.

Heroes of the Storm in a sense keeps game limited to a respectable game-length, with a nice comeback feature mechanic and possibility to it. It's an admirable design, and people might be discouraged by the sound of having some sort of "comeback" method in this game, since it can result in longer games- this might be the complete opposite of which I'd like to do. Game length has to go hand-in-hand with the comeback potential, and at the moment, it's really demanding on the player not to screw up at the early stages of the game, since it results quite easily into a snowball effect.

This particular snowball effect should really see a reduce potency in general, but the way on how to approach the issue at hand is really quite complex, and no matter approach we make, the general result is a magntitude of changes abound, which can easily scare of the playerbase we've managed to accumulate, since we don't really deviate too much even from the original retribution cookie-cutter builds and stuff.

We've had some internal discussing going around in the team on what we can do, and what's feasible and generally trying to make assessments of what the resulst are, if we go through with it. At the time being, we're not decided yet, and I'd rather we do it in a slow pace, and methodical, rather than try to rush something through at this stage.

[welshy]

What are your thoughts on having a series of tutorial videos visible on the menu screen, where all players can check up on hints, mechanics, tactics and the like?

Through my experience of running communities and groups of gamers, people are lazy, very lazy! You need to shove stuff in their face so they don't have to do a lot of "clicking"

[Caeltos]

That's something I would really like. I'd really like to give tools to the players so they can indulge themselves further into the general game mechanics and etc, whilst searching for a game, or just idling in general. Imagine if you're in a lobby with 4/6 players, and instead of fiddling with your thumbs (tabbing down, doing stuff that isn't relevant to the game neccassarily), you can learn more of the game. This could really help the newcomers of the game.

Think of how CoH2 treated it with tutorials and videos, but I would also try to reach more and learn the players of more complex strategies, and even help out with general decision-making stuff. Couple that with general in-game menu "codex", so you can check up the stats of various units. This is something for a comparison sake, that CoH2 really could have improved. They just say "Good against infantry", but you can never do actual in-depth analysis of the unit, and modifiers are subtle values, and never flat out figures told to the players.

[welshy]

That's something I would really like. I'd really like to give tools to the players so they can indulge themselves further into the general game mechanics and etc, whilst searching for a game, or just idling in general. Imagine if you're in a lobby with 4/6 players, and instead of fiddling with your thumbs (tabbing down, doing stuff that isn't relevant to the game neccassarily), you can learn more of the game. This could really help the newcomers of the game.

Are you saying that you could do this with the Elite Mod, what are the technical problems that face this idea?

[Wise Windu]

That's something I would really like. I'd really like to give tools to the players so they can indulge themselves further into the general game mechanics and etc, whilst searching for a game, or just idling in general. Imagine if you're in a lobby with 4/6 players, and instead of fiddling with your thumbs (tabbing down, doing stuff that isn't relevant to the game neccassarily), you can learn more of the game. This could really help the newcomers of the game.

Are you saying that you could do this with the Elite Mod, what are the technical problems that face this idea?

The main issue is that we can't add anything to the main menu right now, or any other menu. Not sure if Crumpet's UI changes will allow for that. I assume it involves changing the .gfx files, which is what we would need to do to add buttons and stuff.

It might be possible to add tutuorial videos to the Cinematics menu, but I've tried replacing the videos there with other videos (same format and everything) and it didn't work - the videos are just skipped. So I'm not really sure how it would be done. That might require changing the .gfx too, though. Again, I'm not sure exactly how it works.

It did work when I just changed the name of another Retribution cinematic to the filename of the opening cinematic, so it was probably something wrong with the formatting of the video. Or the length maybe.

[saltychipmunk]

This game was always really hard on new players, it is common to get curb-stomped in a very disheartening way and never want to come back.

Something that I've never really liked about the game, and something I want to address, with full-force at one point in the future.

That might be extremely difficult to do without also alienating your core players. This is something I felt back when i played tf2... and ultimately why i left tf2.

that game had mechanics and theme specifically designed to reward terrible players for being terrible. like having classes that were explicitly superior to everyone else or the unholy of unholy mechanics ... random critical hits which the devs basically said was put in so noobs could get lucky and kill good players.

it works, those mechanics do keep noobs interested. but alot of the more skilled players who actually value their skills begin to feel cheated when their streaks or plays get completely ruined because the game felts sorry for the new player.

you can partially see this with gk in team games right now. for most races with access to super units like terminators they have to pay for said super unit with skill. the red cost ensures this. but gk can do horrible and still come out on top if they can just get to t3 and start the terminator gravy train. something which is not hard to do if you have lost a few squads worth of upkeep or are in a team game...

Now gk is universally view as a cheesy race, not entirely because of the terminator situation mind you ... it is a contributing factor, but the overly forgiving nature of some of the gk mechanics are extremely poisonous .

There are of course other options , like match making or some metric to calculate and show skill easily however many of those rely on metrics that can be gamed or a massive player base to establish a trend. Those are also hard to do for a game at this stage.