The real issue bothering new players - Part 2, The Solution

[drew]

Part 2, The Solution

 

Posted in general by mistake, please move to improvements, thanks.

 

Now that we've defined the problem in part 1, here's part 2.

 

Proposed solution should be very easy to implement and would definitely put a smile on the faces of many a fresh player.

 

Some mentioned new game servers or noob cities. Each have their pros and cons but are not easy to implement. What I'm suggesting here should be a decent intermediate solution and easy to integrate without having to heavily modify the current system.

 

I'm thinking noob orgs, new type of ID restricted orgs - normal orgs, modified in a way similar to how KT orgs were modified. Right now, as a new player, you might or might not have one in your city and they might or might not have the ID restriction closest to your fighter's ID. More often than not, you're thrown to the bigger wolves and even if the org is doing a great job in giving you fair matches, you can forget about the belt because there's a few quad superb beasts guarding it (and yes, they ARE beasts at this point).

 

After some initial thinking, here are 7 things the type of org I'm thinking of should be & do:

 

1. always be able to accommodate the newest fighters (take the id of the last created fighter, subtract 5000 from it and round it up to the closest appropriate number; if the latest fighter is 171k, it would be a 170k+ restriction, if it's 179k the org would be 175k+ and so on)

2. completely restrict access to all but the newest managers (to avoid pwnage by advanced slider fu and better stats)

3. can't be closed, but managed by players an can change owners (since each city would probably only need 1 or 2)

4. receive some extra funding in order to be able to give noobs better contracts

5. dressed in pretty clothes and made to look exciting and like it really matters (maybe making something like an ultimate fighter out of it, having a "who's the best 165k+ fighter" theme or even choosing coaches for opposing teams each season)

6. clearing it's roster and releasing fighters into the wild as soon as the time for a new ID limit comes (old season ends, new season begins) and

7. have a new way to reward the managers, now that they can't have long term champs and keep having noobs on their roster (acknowledge and reward the fact that they are helping the game by helping noobs into the world and reward them with something every time one of the fighters who started in their org or on their team gets a belt anywhere else later in game)

 

There are other things to consider - how to make each new manager aware of these orgs (maybe even making the participation mandatory for at least 1 fighter), details regarding the way they would be operated and tweaks to my proposed ideas, so if you like the general idea or at least the logic behind it, please leave your suggestions.

[Warwynd]

This is really a good idea, I think. Not sure how easy to implement it would be, but probably not too difficult.

 

On to suggestions to expand on this. You mentioned:

 

7. have a new way to reward the managers, now that they can't have long term champs and keep having noobs on their roster (acknowledge and reward the fact that they are helping the game by helping noobs into the world and reward them with something every time one of the fighters who started in their org or on their team gets a belt anywhere else later in game)

 

My suggestion is a slight hype boost for the "noob org" when they get the gold in a standard org. Kind of like when the commentators mention that "Forrest Griffin was a season one 'The Ultimate Fighter' winner." That certainly has to have the effect of boosting veiwership for "The Ultimate Fighter".

 

1. always be able to accommodate the newest fighters (take the id of the last created fighter, subtract 5000 from it and round it up to the closest appropriate number; if the latest fighter is 171k, it would be a 170k+ restriction, if it's 179k the org would be 175k+ and so on)

 

I think that this is interesting, although I might suggest doing it in increments of 10K rather then five. I think that would allow more time in the noob org before no longer being inelligible. They can get more fights in before "being thrown to the wolves".

 

6. clearing it's roster and releasing fighters into the wild as soon as the time for a new ID limit comes (old season ends, new season begins)

 

There is only one problem with this part here, and I'm not sure of how I would suggest rectifying it. Let me paint a scenario for you. Friday night I make a fighter numbered 17999. Saturday morning new player makes 180000. The nob org resets to 180K restricted. I am out without even getting in one training session and no fights. So there needs to be some sort of over lap. I'm not sure what that limit should be or how it would work best to allow both those fighters to continue in the org. I mean a difference in ID of 1 certainly is no advantage. A few possible suggestions could be:

 

1. allow up to a certain number of the most recent fighters to continue in the org until that number is reached. Say 2k - 5K?
   
2. Set a number of fights in the noob org as allowable after the cut off? No idea in Hell how one could make that work.
   
3. Hype+pop could possibly be used to be the deciding factor in cases like the one I included?
   
4. Perhaps some real world time limit?
   

 

Not sure which of the above would be the best solution to this particular scenario or if any of them would be a good at all. Perhaps a combination of the above since someone who does not win any fights early could eventually end up with a significantly lower ID and eventually be a wolf in the puppy kennel.

 

If this idea is implemented then perhaps there should be a pop up of newbie orgs that are in the chosen city and the player can pick one and a PM gets sent to the org owner informing him or her of the new players desire to join that new org. Or perhaps this could be automatic contracts and the newbie orgs would work just like QFCs without player control at all. Just tossing out a bunch of possibilities and seeing what sticks.

[WarMachine]

What about partnerships to be feeder orgs?

[drew]

Thanks for the input Warwynd.

 

I'm glad you liked the idea & brought in some nice additions to it.

 

My suggestion is a slight hype boost for the "noob org" when they get the gold in a standard org. Kind of like when the commentators mention that "Forrest Griffin was a season one 'The Ultimate Fighter' winner." That certainly has to have the effect of boosting veiwership for "The Ultimate Fighter".

Yes, that would be a good reward. Coupled with a couple of others, it would make sure that managers choose to start noob orgs instead of regular ones. Or, something of a completely different nature, more in tune with:

 

Or perhaps this could be automatic contracts and the newbie orgs would work just like QFCs without player control at all. Just tossing out a bunch of possibilities and seeing what sticks.

That would probably be even better, as it would allow for quality control and assure that only competent managers would run such orgs. The more I think about it, the more sense it makes to do it that way - use a regular org as the basis for the company, but make it so that it's not about hype and competition between similar orgs, but about new players getting a good and FUN introduction into the game.

 

I think that this is interesting, although I might suggest doing it in increments of 10K rather then five. I think that would allow more time in the noob org before no longer being inelligible. They can get more fights in before "being thrown to the wolves".

That could work too. I don't know how long it takes for the game to gain x000 new fighters from new managers, so I used 5000 in order to make the potential gap between fighters smaller.

 

There is only one problem with this part here, and I'm not sure of how I would suggest rectifying it. Let me paint a scenario for you. Friday night I make a fighter numbered 17999. Saturday morning new player makes 180000. The nob org resets to 180K restricted. I am out without even getting in one training session and no fights. So there needs to be some sort of over lap. I'm not sure what that limit should be or how it would work best to allow both those fighters to continue in the org. I mean a difference in ID of 1 certainly is no advantage. A few possible suggestions could be:

 

1. allow up to a certain number of the most recent fighters to continue in the org until that number is reached. Say 2k - 5K?
   
2. Set a number of fights in the noob org as allowable after the cut off? No idea in Hell how one could make that work.
   
3. Hype+pop could possibly be used to be the deciding factor in cases like the one I included?
   
4. Perhaps some real world time limit?
   

 

Not sure which of the above would be the best solution to this particular scenario or if any of them would be a good at all. Perhaps a combination of the above since someone who does not win any fights early could eventually end up with a significantly lower ID and eventually be a wolf in the puppy kennel.

If I didn't miss anything, the org in your scenario would reset to 175k (or 170k, if we subtracted 10000 from the latest fighter ID) and every newly created fighter would always be eligible to enter it. But this would still have to be coupled with a small overlap, so that fighters with scheduled fights wouldn't be cut from the org.

 

If this idea is implemented then perhaps there should be a pop up of newbie orgs that are in the chosen city and the player can pick one and a PM gets sent to the org owner informing him or her of the new players desire to join that new org. Or perhaps this could be automatic contracts and the newbie orgs would work just like QFCs without player control at all. Just tossing out a bunch of possibilities and seeing what sticks.

Probably something like this. I'm not sure if there would be enough new players for multiple such orgs per city and if there was only 1 per city, then contracts (or at least invitations) should be automatic.

 

Also, if there was only 1 per city, it could be modified to bring additional fun to both managers and new fighters - turn each cycle into a season, maybe choose a new manager to run it for each new season and maybe even bring in 2 respected managers as coaches, automatically split all the newcomers into 2 teams and make a tournament out of it.

 

That would give veteran managers a whole new set of challenges (guiding their team through the season and winning it in as many weight classes) and something to aim for (get enough votes and become a season coach) and it would mean A LOT to new managers to be a part of a cool tournament right of the bat and possible even win it. Compared to today, a new player would have been through a lot more excitement, interaction and acknowledgment in his first couple of months and wouldn't get as frustrated with slow game speed and the fact that he's at the bottom of the food chain and most likely to stay there for a better part of the year.

[drew]

What about partnerships to be feeder orgs?

Great idea, actually, that would bring in a fun new element as well! The mother org could gain something from managing such a feeder and that would be a nice incentive for opening one.

 

And in the scenario where there was only one per city and made to work as a tournament with teams and coaches, then the coaches could be the representatives of existing orgs in the city and those orgs could be getting credit, money, belts and future fighters. The same goes for clothing and nutrition, as each new season could have new sponsors as well, benefiting them in a way similar to how it now works with partnerships between companies (orgs and merchandize, gyms and nutrition).

 

It's nice to see that the idea could be turned into something good for everyone in the game. If you're reading this and like it, don't be shy and contribute! The basic version of such an org wouldn't be much harder to develop than a KT org was, and it would mostly solve the issue of the game being too slow and too hard for new players.

[Warwynd]

Also, if there was only 1 per city, it could be modified to bring additional fun to both managers and new fighters - turn each cycle into a season, maybe choose a new manager to run it for each new season and maybe even bring in 2 respected managers as coaches, automatically split all the newcomers into 2 teams and make a tournament out of it.

 

That would give veteran managers a whole new set of challenges (guiding their team through the season and winning it in as many weight classes) and something to aim for (get enough votes and become a season coach) and it would mean A LOT to new managers to be a part of a cool tournament right of the bat and possible even win it. Compared to today, a new player would have been through a lot more excitement, interaction and acknowledgment in his first couple of months and wouldn't get as frustrated with slow game speed and the fact that he's at the bottom of the food chain and most likely to stay there for a better part of the year.

 

This part, in particular, is very cool. Not sure how well this would work as the "teams" would fill up not all at once, but I think it deserves a closer look. It means almost certainly that this needs to be not run by a player I think though. Or maybe that the two team captains would jointly run the org in some capactiy. Again not sure how that would work. But if this could be impelemented it would also need to restrict the Managers ID or something to make this for noob managers and not yet another way for more experienced managers to gain even more advantages. The team coaches could also be set to be mentors aoutomatically for their team. Something that could make it fun for the "coaches" would be if they got to pick which fighters were on each team; like on TUF.