Post by johtul on Jan 10, 2022 9:40:35 GMT 1
Hey Agonians,
I've been planning to make this post for a while now, before I get started I do just want to re-emphasize my appreciation to the devs (both past and present) for their hard work on this unique game. I hope this post can be helpful to them, or at least create some fun discussion.
For the rest of this I will lay it out as 1) Agonia's biggest challenges 2) My proposed solution 3) Anticipated concerns to the solution.
1.) Challenges
New player retention - This has been discussed and worked on in a variety of ways. A lot of it is probably simply due to the style of game that Agonia is. Some is probably actually preventable. My concern here is not so much with the totally new players, but the in-between ones. Notable players from around when I began were Oorali, Cube, Dihajh, Dollar, and me . Of the names I mentioned I believe I'm the only one still active and I rerolled in frustration and despair (I'm being slightly dramatic) after over 1 year of playing. (Slightly later class of Osin/Nasyra/Qruxio/Cat /Rashena seems to have had slightly better retention). I think the issue with this timeframe is that at just beyond one year players who have scraped, learned, and played hard truly confront the next challenge.
The gap between old and new players - I believe that Bel has balanced this about as well as possible given the circumstances; give an ever increasing newbie bonus that's meticulously calculated to allow newbies to catch up as fast as possible, without actually passing any old players (at least any who have spent their turns and moves well). This solution works pretty well because it gets newbies in the fight as fast as possible, but still allows older players to maintain their spots at the top which they've earned over the years. The problem is that it's a tough pill to swallow for competitive folks (like me) who want a real chance to make it to the top or to at least see how the stack up when there is a "fair" deck. It also tends to lead to some resentment from the grannies who "back in their day" had to punch squids with their bare fists (or something like that).
Lack of clear late-game - Already touched on by the last challenge, but basically how is the admin team supposed to deal with this as players continue to get stronger and hardcap continues to rise? Only thing I can see is to keep increasing the newbie bonus, but I'm not sure how long that will be sustainable in a way that feels satisfying for all parties.
Hardcap - Straight up, training above softcap is brutal. It takes grinding to a degree that is very frustrating for many.
Can't take breaks - Because of the need to relentlessly grind in order to keep up, it is not feasible to take extended breaks (or even routine short ones) and still stay competitive. For a game that so perfectly fixes the problem of "but I don't have 8 hours to game a day so I can't be competiive" that is present in other games, it feels like a missed opportunity to me to not have some way that players can take a break without giving up their competitiveness.
Not enough PVP - Again, because of the need to grind and keep up, players tend to be risk averse. Sometimes players blame each other or the community for this, but I think it is actually a result of game design. Without events or injections (like titanium wars) from admins, pvp is best done sparingly.
2) The Solution - Character Lifecycles
At last, what you've all been reading so patiently to see! My initial take on how to improve all of this was to have "Seasons" for Agonia that last every 2ish years and where every character dies at the end. I think this could be super epic and cool, but ultimately it is a bit too much like a longer Rush server and I believe it is pretty far from what I understand the admin's vision of a "persistent server" is. Instead I believe that characters should have a lifespan of 2-3 years. This is probably a ludicrous idea to many grannies, but before you write the idea off stick with me.
The New Rules - Basically hardcap would always be 500 and softcap would be 475 (or potentially abolish softcap altogether!). Every character would get a bonus equivalent to the current newbie bonus. At the 1 year mark the bonus would be over. The next year would be business as usual. At the 2 year mark they would get additional death penalties and begin "aging" significantly. Basically they would soon no longer be able to gain evos and would even start getting stat maluses. Then, they reroll. They'd have the ability to keep their gear and get other new bonuses to their next characters (discussed later).
How this Solves the Challenges - This would help both newbies and midrange player retention. Newbies would have grannies rerunning the game at a similar character age as them, so they could camp up and work together more. Mid-range players would have a chance to be "at the top" as the best grannies age out (of course, just like in Rush, it would be up to their own skill to take advantage of this). For obvious reasons it fixes the gap between old and new players, it removes the need for an end-game/expanding newbie bonus, and reduces or removes softcap. Players could take breaks in between characters for their own mental health or even have a limited-use built in feature that allows you to "freeze" the age of your character when you log off for an extended period of time (even without this it would not be as costly to miss time from the game because you will eventually get a clean slate). I suspect that this would help bring many older players back to the game that feel that they've missed too much time to ever be competitive again. Lastly, PVP would be much more appealing because you would not have to worry about falling behind (again because of the eventual clean slate) or you could wait until your 2 year mark and then go rampage.
3) Anticipated Concerns
I only have thought of 2, but they are large:
It is not fair to Grannies and they would quit - First off, remember that you still would keep your gear (and potentially relics) from character to character. Second, there is a brilliant idea for this that I have to give credit to Verage for: Prestige points. These points would be earned by one of your characters, but redeemed by a future one. Players would use these points to purchase things like bonus 1% exp to any chosen weapon type, extra relic on spawn, extend the lifespan of a character, bonus exp on character kills, bonus resistance to X rune, etc. These rewards could be purchased cheaply for 1 time use or for a much higher price for permanent account bonuses. There are a lot of fun possibilities here both for rewards and ways to earn points. Of course, balancing would be key so that they are not op, but still worthwhile. If you, as a granny, still feel that you would quit if this change was implemented, but you claim to want the best for the game I ask that you try to honestly evaluate why this is the case and reply below.
It is not in the spirit of a persistent server - There is some truth to this, but I believe it would actually create a much richer history for Agonia. "Remember Grahf's first mythos? Dude has the highest kill count of all time, legendary...". Factions would still grow and fight or even split, just like now. The difference is I expect things would be more dynamic. Players like Jolly, Mutu, Tiana would certainly make a name for themselves with most (if not every) iteration of their characters and would vie for records over the years. Instead of a band that is stretching as one end slowly rises and the other stays on the ground, we would have an ever-turning wheel.
I truly look forward to your feedback! Again, thanks for the fun so far.
Sincerely,
Joh
I've been planning to make this post for a while now, before I get started I do just want to re-emphasize my appreciation to the devs (both past and present) for their hard work on this unique game. I hope this post can be helpful to them, or at least create some fun discussion.
For the rest of this I will lay it out as 1) Agonia's biggest challenges 2) My proposed solution 3) Anticipated concerns to the solution.
1.) Challenges
New player retention - This has been discussed and worked on in a variety of ways. A lot of it is probably simply due to the style of game that Agonia is. Some is probably actually preventable. My concern here is not so much with the totally new players, but the in-between ones. Notable players from around when I began were Oorali, Cube, Dihajh, Dollar, and me . Of the names I mentioned I believe I'm the only one still active and I rerolled in frustration and despair (I'm being slightly dramatic) after over 1 year of playing. (Slightly later class of Osin/Nasyra/Qruxio/Cat /Rashena seems to have had slightly better retention). I think the issue with this timeframe is that at just beyond one year players who have scraped, learned, and played hard truly confront the next challenge.
The gap between old and new players - I believe that Bel has balanced this about as well as possible given the circumstances; give an ever increasing newbie bonus that's meticulously calculated to allow newbies to catch up as fast as possible, without actually passing any old players (at least any who have spent their turns and moves well). This solution works pretty well because it gets newbies in the fight as fast as possible, but still allows older players to maintain their spots at the top which they've earned over the years. The problem is that it's a tough pill to swallow for competitive folks (like me) who want a real chance to make it to the top or to at least see how the stack up when there is a "fair" deck. It also tends to lead to some resentment from the grannies who "back in their day" had to punch squids with their bare fists (or something like that).
Lack of clear late-game - Already touched on by the last challenge, but basically how is the admin team supposed to deal with this as players continue to get stronger and hardcap continues to rise? Only thing I can see is to keep increasing the newbie bonus, but I'm not sure how long that will be sustainable in a way that feels satisfying for all parties.
Hardcap - Straight up, training above softcap is brutal. It takes grinding to a degree that is very frustrating for many.
Can't take breaks - Because of the need to relentlessly grind in order to keep up, it is not feasible to take extended breaks (or even routine short ones) and still stay competitive. For a game that so perfectly fixes the problem of "but I don't have 8 hours to game a day so I can't be competiive" that is present in other games, it feels like a missed opportunity to me to not have some way that players can take a break without giving up their competitiveness.
Not enough PVP - Again, because of the need to grind and keep up, players tend to be risk averse. Sometimes players blame each other or the community for this, but I think it is actually a result of game design. Without events or injections (like titanium wars) from admins, pvp is best done sparingly.
2) The Solution - Character Lifecycles
At last, what you've all been reading so patiently to see! My initial take on how to improve all of this was to have "Seasons" for Agonia that last every 2ish years and where every character dies at the end. I think this could be super epic and cool, but ultimately it is a bit too much like a longer Rush server and I believe it is pretty far from what I understand the admin's vision of a "persistent server" is. Instead I believe that characters should have a lifespan of 2-3 years. This is probably a ludicrous idea to many grannies, but before you write the idea off stick with me.
The New Rules - Basically hardcap would always be 500 and softcap would be 475 (or potentially abolish softcap altogether!). Every character would get a bonus equivalent to the current newbie bonus. At the 1 year mark the bonus would be over. The next year would be business as usual. At the 2 year mark they would get additional death penalties and begin "aging" significantly. Basically they would soon no longer be able to gain evos and would even start getting stat maluses. Then, they reroll. They'd have the ability to keep their gear and get other new bonuses to their next characters (discussed later).
How this Solves the Challenges - This would help both newbies and midrange player retention. Newbies would have grannies rerunning the game at a similar character age as them, so they could camp up and work together more. Mid-range players would have a chance to be "at the top" as the best grannies age out (of course, just like in Rush, it would be up to their own skill to take advantage of this). For obvious reasons it fixes the gap between old and new players, it removes the need for an end-game/expanding newbie bonus, and reduces or removes softcap. Players could take breaks in between characters for their own mental health or even have a limited-use built in feature that allows you to "freeze" the age of your character when you log off for an extended period of time (even without this it would not be as costly to miss time from the game because you will eventually get a clean slate). I suspect that this would help bring many older players back to the game that feel that they've missed too much time to ever be competitive again. Lastly, PVP would be much more appealing because you would not have to worry about falling behind (again because of the eventual clean slate) or you could wait until your 2 year mark and then go rampage.
3) Anticipated Concerns
I only have thought of 2, but they are large:
It is not fair to Grannies and they would quit - First off, remember that you still would keep your gear (and potentially relics) from character to character. Second, there is a brilliant idea for this that I have to give credit to Verage for: Prestige points. These points would be earned by one of your characters, but redeemed by a future one. Players would use these points to purchase things like bonus 1% exp to any chosen weapon type, extra relic on spawn, extend the lifespan of a character, bonus exp on character kills, bonus resistance to X rune, etc. These rewards could be purchased cheaply for 1 time use or for a much higher price for permanent account bonuses. There are a lot of fun possibilities here both for rewards and ways to earn points. Of course, balancing would be key so that they are not op, but still worthwhile. If you, as a granny, still feel that you would quit if this change was implemented, but you claim to want the best for the game I ask that you try to honestly evaluate why this is the case and reply below.
It is not in the spirit of a persistent server - There is some truth to this, but I believe it would actually create a much richer history for Agonia. "Remember Grahf's first mythos? Dude has the highest kill count of all time, legendary...". Factions would still grow and fight or even split, just like now. The difference is I expect things would be more dynamic. Players like Jolly, Mutu, Tiana would certainly make a name for themselves with most (if not every) iteration of their characters and would vie for records over the years. Instead of a band that is stretching as one end slowly rises and the other stays on the ground, we would have an ever-turning wheel.
I truly look forward to your feedback! Again, thanks for the fun so far.
Sincerely,
Joh
