I really think it would be a good idea to consider reducing building costs and upgrade times for lower level PH (in the PH1-6 range) to help them catch up a bit faster, or finding some other way to speed up early game. New long-term users are desperately needed, and getting them to a place where they can actively contribute in a meaningful way is important for player retention. PH7 is when players start actually having a bit of impact in a rumble, even if its not a terribly large one, and as such, low PHs are rejected from a majority of guilds, denying new players a fundamental aspect of gameplay - this will only get worse as more and more PH are added. These levels are already fairly cheap and fast compared to PH7-9. Dedicated players are already PH7 within a month. Since most of the focus and activity in the game is in the endgame, getting users to that stage faster is good both for current players (more opponents to play with! opponents are content!), good for new players, and good for development (if you're planning on users being PH7 quickly, you don't need to focus as much energy on balancing things for early game, minimizing how much effort has to be put in with every new feature). Also, since most players are already at higher levels, being lower level will make new players feel like the game is more dead than it is, since they won't really see many attacks down low. Getting them to a place where they can actually see activity will create a better image of a lively game, and make them less likely to quit. I'm not suggesting an instant PH7, just making it a bit quicker. This is where most of the grind starts anyways. The last time I suggested this, there was one major complaint: WE spent all that time doing it, they should have to as well! My rebuttal to this is that when WE did it, there weren't new PH levels, we were all doing it together, so there was more activity at that level at the time. We weren't rejected from guilds, and we had plenty of similar level active players drudging it out with us. It doesn't HURT us if they can catch up a bit quicker, but it does give us more people to play with, more targets, and an overall better community. If players are too miffed about the idea, players that already toughed out the waits could be compensated a bit in some sort of way, perhaps with a small gem bonus. Finally, I want to use an example from the most successful game in online history, WoW. When they increase the level cap, they also find many ways to make it easier for new players to level up and catch up, as they want the focus to be on the new content rather than making sure old stuff is still balanced. Blizzard has been remarkably successful in generating and retaining new players and taking a lesson from the successes of their model could really help.
I can honestly say that you have read my mind (don't dig too deep it has dark corners). In the "rumble mini" era I have created one to counter with the other mini's. Getting bored reeeeeeealy quickly I stopped using that account pretty quickly. However, with our guild growing and new guilds being set up I used my second account as cap in one of the new guilds and started upgrading that one too. One of our mid age players played his island to ph9 at an awful quick pase. In the mean time additional functionalities have emerged (silo and the fort) which also take up additional time so I will never break his pase. What I do find out now that getting the BP/ EP and last but not leased... TIME is one angry b**ch when you start from zero again. The walls I can take but getting up to a contributing lvl is takin way more time and I do see plays s quitting now and then because of the path they have to walk towards any Phall level worth competing with. The above stated: +1
I must very respectfully disagree. As you said, a dedicated player can get through PH6 in a month. During that month, if they are indeed dedicated and not just rushing their PH, they will be upgrading their troops and island buildings. To do so, they must be exploring the map and attacking PVP bases to earn loot, BP and EP. That month is, I would argue, critical to giving the player the experience needed to be able to contribute to a rumbling guild as PH7. I started a second account in order to capture data for a spreadsheet of upgrade costs and times, since the wiki is outdated and incomplete. The biggest issue I had was a lack of BP, and that has, in large part, been remedied in the BP drop rate increase in chests. If something had to be tweaked to make life a bit easier for new players, I would argue for reducing the BP needed to upgrade the Academy at the lower levels. We are seeing many players now who have advanced PH levels, but with Academy 2 levels behind their PH, due to a lack of BP during the period right after the first Legendaries came out. That has been the biggest cause of frustration in our guild, PH8's who can't beat other PH8's because their troops are trained to PH6 levels.
I completely agree with both of you! My suggestions would therefore be: Make PH6 the first meaningful rumble scoring - this would speed up their ability to compete in rumbles, without dramatically altering the existing build/recruit time-scales that have already proven effective! Either Make BP & EP resources that can be gem purchased from Market, Or allow Academy (BP)/Lighthouse (EP) shortfalls to be gemmed - this would allow long-time players to build second accounts more quickly (in return for 'supporting' the game's development!)
Lower AC levels could have BP cost cut, or players could get a bit of initial BP. Fast forwarding players past the useless PH levels wouldn't completely cut away from learning to play, they'd still have to learn a bit to get past them, it would just take less time. It used to take months of play to get to lv 60 in WoW, the level cap was raised to 70, and they fast forwarded that part. It was raised again, and again, and the earlier levels found more and more ways to speed past them, as they aren't the focus of gameplay - just as PH1-6 definitely aren't the focus of gameplay right now (and shouldn't be! cut backwards compatibility and shoo people into newer things asap!). If you wanted to pick up the game now, and it took the same time it took before for each set of levels, it would be a good year before you could start playing with any of your max level friends, and that would completely kill any chances of Blizzard getting new players. Adding new levels is creating that problem here, its going to take someone probably almost 6 months of nonstop upgrades to get to PH10 max from PH1 at the current rate, assuming they have unlimited of every resource and don't speed anything up, if PH10 upgrade times are similar to PH9 ones. If you were a new player, how likely would you be to pick up a game where you had to spend 4 months to even be able to join in any real active guild, experiencing a dead community until then? How likely are you to stick around with a game where the first 30-60 days you find almost no other players to play with, and cannot experience any guild perks, which are almost certainly a necessity? If PH10 takes another 8 weeks to max everything without gemming stuff, new players will be two more months behind everyone else once people are maxed PH10. That catchup period is just getting longer and longer. When PH10 comes out, our minimum requirements will probably raise to PH8 instead of PH7 meaning new players have even longer before they can actually start playing the real game. Walls aside, at the current rate, that will be several months of play where most players will not be able to join almost any real guild, or see more than the random odd attack. I'm not saying make them amazing right away, just help them catch up past the now-useless levels (which weren't useless when WE were doing them) so their early game experience isn't too offputting. Lots of old players are leaving, and by not finding ways to encourage new players to stay the game is going to die.
I agree with almost everything in this post. I only take issue with: In my case I deliberately chose not to join a guild for my first 1-2 months playing (until I was a developed PH5) - since I wanted to initially figure things out in my own way and at my own pace. I also didn't really start attacking until I joined my first guild (which happens to be the one I'm still with ). However I don't intend any implication that I am a 'typical' player!
I'm the same way in most games that I avoid the social aspects for a while. The social learning curve is an important thing to balance for multiple player types. And I'm not suggesting completely eliminating that period, just adjusting to to be more up to pace with the new level of upgrades/requirements that are different from when we initially went through it. PH5-6 was entry level to serious guilds a while ago, and now as ph 7-8 becomes more of the norm (with new PH being available and rumble score discrepencies between levels), I think that same period of time should be adjusted so that you're transitioning into the "feeling comfortable enough with the game to investigate guild play" stage around when you start meeting that minimum cutoff.
