Anyone can say numbers. Where's the proof? What's your method?
Uh, I've said the method I use. It's called the search engine in game. You can specify specific instances. I went down the list after I added the four instances, at the time, of MC together, then added the numbers I got from every other instance int eh game (and as long as there is an active instance it will show up on the list). Seriously Smack, I know you don't give two flips about what I write and only pick out specific sentences and such, but I've said I used the in game search engine at least two other times in this thread.
Or to put it another way, the people finder in the game is the auction house search engine we never got. (Yes, I went there)
In other news, comparing apples to apples (all Cryptic games) this is what Steam Charts says; (20 minutes ago/ 24 hour peak/ all-time)
Champions Online 237/327/984
Star Trek Online 1283/2284/7402
Neverwinter 1399/3551/14822
Given that STO I believe was put on Steam at roughly the same time as Champions, would you say those numbers are reflectively accurate of those two games player bases?
No really, what's the point? It's as sistersilicon has said; it's over-exaggerating whatever impacts that might be involved. I wouldn't say it's self-destructive to the point it drives away players, but there's definitely nothing constructive about it. This is why I put emphasis on profit data that coincides with population trends to determine how much players are actually spending into the game and just how consistently. Play armchair statistician all you want with population numbers, it's meaningless without considering the money. Show that it's "barely" enough to keep the game running (something which I never said in the first place by the way) and that we have every reason to be absolutely worried and that it's not just unfounded alarmist fear.
No really, what's the point? It's as sistersilicon has said; it's over-exaggerating whatever impacts that might be involved. This is why I put emphasis on profit data that coincides with population trends to determine how much players are actually spending into the game and just how consistently. Play armchair statistician all you want with population numbers, it's meaningless without considering the money. Show that it's "barely" enough to keep the game running (something which I never said in the first place by the way) and that we have every reason to be absolutely worried and that it's not just unfounded alarmist fear.
Because less people means less income, which means less profits, which means less resources to be spent on said product. It's basic cause and effect, there is no armchair statistics about it.
You of all people jenny, should be familiar to that simple fact. It's not even an armchair statistic.
Anyone can say numbers. Where's the proof? What's your method?
Uh, I've said the method I use. It's called the search engine in game. You can specify specific instances. I went down the list after I added the four instances, at the time, of MC together, then added the numbers I got from every other instance int eh game (and as long as there is an active instance it will show up on the list). Seriously Smack, I know you don't give two flips about what I write and only pick out specific sentences and such, but I've said I used the in game search engine at least two other times in this thread.
Or to put it another way, the people finder in the game is the auction house search engine we never got. (Yes, I went there)
In other news, comparing apples to apples (all Cryptic games) this is what Steam Charts says; (20 minutes ago/ 24 hour peak/ all-time)
Champions Online 237/327/984
Star Trek Online 1283/2284/7402
Neverwinter 1399/3551/14822
Given that STO I believe was put on Steam at roughly the same time as Champions, would you say those numbers are reflectively accurate of those two games player bases?
Guess what! I don't read every post you make. So this search you do can account for everywhere anyone can be, including alerts and hideouts and stuff?
If it does, okay then, I believe you can get an accurate reading of how many players are on at any given moment. But, question: If you can already get this info, why lean on Steam info that's only showing a fraction of the actual population?
To answer your last question: I have no idea. Not sure why it matters.
Yes Silver, you're not telling me what I don't already know.
What I'm clearly asking for is the profit data to show exactly how bad things are. The data, not more hypothesis.
You mean you really can't sit there and make a basic assumption on how bad things are by the fact they took and reskinned the Bite! event stuff basically and tweaked the code for villain fighting? Or the fact for the Blood Moon they basically copy pasta'd the ghost ship into Vibora Bay from Lemuria? Or the fact that new costumes are become less and less common now. When was the last actual C-Store costume we got? Variable Robot and that was what, in the first half of the year?
Not to mention our dev team is probably stressed beyond all levels. Arkayne, not only being lead here, is also the Senior Content Designer over on Neverwinter, and who knows what else. GMC is splitting his time and doing what he can, and no telling what the other devs are doing as well.
How bad are things, they don't look good. They are obviously trying to do with what little time they got and limited resources to do it in, and it shows. I dunno what tell you actually need to understand it, maybe the water coming up to your ankles, but there are signs all over of right now how "bad" things are as far as the state of the game.
Things are as "bad" as they've been for a long time. It could be better, but the game could be literally dead. It's log. It's better than bad. It's good!
No point, Biff - some folks are just really wrapped up in "proving" that CO is dying, same as the past six years. They get downright shrill about it from time to time. I'm not wasting bandwidth on it any more, especially when it starts to take up valuable playing time.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
No point, Biff - some folks are just really wrapped up in "proving" that CO is dying, same as the past six years. They get downright shrill about it from time to time. I'm not wasting bandwidth on it any more, especially when it starts to take up valuable playing time.
Wow, way to miss the point by more than a country mile Jon, as usual. I am not trying to prove that CO is dying I am stating I am worried about any future this game has. And pretending that such low numbers are just fine for Champions when I want this game to have a future is just asinine. And unless you're emptying a few thousand dollars a week into Champions, you can't say the game is doing fine.
No point, Biff - some folks are just really wrapped up in "proving" that CO is dying, same as the past six years. They get downright shrill about it from time to time. I'm not wasting bandwidth on it any more, especially when it starts to take up valuable playing time.
Wow, way to miss the point by more than a country mile Jon, as usual. I am not trying to prove that CO is dying I am stating I am worried about any future this game has. And pretending that such low numbers are just fine for Champions when I want this game to have a future is just asinine. And unless you're emptying a few thousand dollars a week into Champions, you can't say the game is doing fine.
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The game isn't doing fine. But the greater issue is how much money is being spent. Is the amount of money that those THAT ARE HERE are spending enough to justify more development work that can possible give us more content? (And thus increase the population as more things to do in game exist).
The population won't magically increase and stay up without an influx of development resources for CONTENT. (Not balance passes, but actual content-- things that folks can do).
It's why I find all the discussion of balance recently to be a bit silly. Balance passes are the LAST thing we need right now.
More content other than Onslaught and temporary event (blood moon) is what is needed. If there are limited dev resources (I'm sorry but as far as I can see they still are) then that should be the focus.
The game isn't doing fine. But the greater issue is how much money is being spent. Is the amount of money that those THAT ARE HERE are spending enough to justify more development work that can possible give us more content? (And thus increase the population as more things to do in game exist).
The population won't magically increase and stay up without an influx of development resources for CONTENT. (Not balance passes, but actual content-- things that folks can do).
It's why I find all the discussion of balance recently to be a bit silly. Balance passes are the LAST thing we need right now.
More content other than Onslaught and temporary event (blood moon) is what is needed. If there are limited dev resources (I'm sorry but as far as I can see they still are) then that should be the focus.
Not f*&^king balance passes.
Sadly I doubt Champions is making enough money to do more than Balance passes and redesigning old events with new skins. We know what the magic number was suppose to be; 100,000 or $1.5 million per month to be considered healthy. This is what Jack Emmert himself stated in a news article before Champions launched. So ignoring the 100,000 sustained player base with a subscription model, let's pretend that the magic number, hasn't changed from $1.5 million monthly due to rising costs of production and higher values needed. And let's pretend that Champions has 5,000 active players. That means that each and everyone of those players has to pay $300 a month.
But we well and know a large portion aren't even paying for the game just playing. So let's assume that maybe half of the people actually put money down. That means that 2500 people are burdened with having to pay $600 a month. But hell let's go for worst case scenario and say that only 1000 people are actually putting money down out of 5000... That means that those thousand people, to meet that goal, would have to be paying $1500 a month to meet the goal that was set back in 2009, and again, due to rising costs undoubtedly has gone up. I dunno about anyone else but $300 a month just for a game is a hefty price to pay, let alone $1500 a month.
And that's the other part of the ticket that people seem to forget. It takes money to get things done. They have to pay their developers (who are over taxed right now) they have to pay the bills, they have to pay for their net, their utilities and investors. And of all they have to make sure they stay in the black.
Aside from maintaining that SteamCharts can be an interesting indicator, the only qualitative comment I've personally made about the game recently is:
You can see that CO definitely got a spike with the Onslaught promotion, and has retained some new players since then. It'll be interesting to see what happens going forward.
If that's all it takes for some folks to get so angsty and aggressive, I dunno what to tell you. It doesn't seem very healthy though.
Post edited by quasimojo1 on
LTS since 2009. Author of ACT parser module for CO. Founder of Rampagers. Resident curmudgeon.
"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
You know... we've got a bit of a Catch 22 on our hands when it comes to content updates and player spending...
In order to get the types of updates that will encourage more players to spend more money we need more players to speend more money... See... it's a Catch 22...
Yeah, that's how it's been for a while now. Without a leap of faith from PWE, we're stuck in a rut. But, I'm really thankful for the new team and all the new stuff they've been trying.
You know... we've got a bit of a Catch 22 on our hands when it comes to content updates and player spending...
In order to get the types of updates that will encourage more players to spend more money we need more players to speend more money... See... it's a Catch 22...
That is where advertising and new players come in. If you can attract new people to your game and get them to buy some stuff, you can use that money to develop more content.
It's kind of hard to retain people when the default controls are terrible and game play is extremely convoluted and inconsistent. The controls can be very good and the game's "heartbeat" is much better than most mmorpgs but the entry barrier is too high.
It's kind of hard to retain people when the default controls are terrible and game play is extremely convoluted and inconsistent. The controls can be very good and the game's "heartbeat" is much better than most mmorpgs but the entry barrier is too high.
Regarding controls, that's entirely subjective and there's no obtainable proof to show that it's really a significant factor enough to be driving people away. Apart from the less-than-perfect tab targeting, although able to be tweaked using "within camera" control settings, I personally found the default controls to be very comfortable, even more so if I'm using a gamepad.
It's kind of hard to retain people when the default controls are terrible and game play is extremely convoluted and inconsistent. The controls can be very good and the game's "heartbeat" is much better than most mmorpgs but the entry barrier is too high.
Regarding controls, that's entirely subjective and there's no obtainable proof to show that it's really a significant factor enough to be driving people away. Apart from the less-than-perfect tab targeting, although able to be tweaked using "within camera" control settings, I personally found the default controls to be very comfortable, even more so if I'm using a gamepad.
Objects must be clicked to be targeted, but if you are able to lift them, you will often do so when clicking on them.
"Melee can Ignore Selected Target" is off. This is terrible for dealing with knocks and pulls/kiting by ranged characters.
"Disable Hostile Target Auto Facing" and "Allow Turning When Facing Target" are on by default, which causes you to lose targets for PA toggles if your body turns, or they move.
"Visible Auto Target" is off. You don't know what your target will default to if you select it with a key instead of click. Clicking reduces your response time.
Power activation and movement are handled by the same fingers. Movement is an important part of this game when you don't have the power to steamroll everything. New players don't have the power to steamroll everything.
The interaction key is used both for lifting objects and breaking holds. If you are held next to an object that you can lift, you pick it up. It significantly increases the time that you are helpless.
Auto-Follow is unassigned. For melee characters, visual spam, latency, and frame rate issues can make moving targets impossible to attack without this feature. All of those things tend to vary wildly during play unless you have exceptionally good or bad hardware.
Maximum zoom-out distance is set to 30 feet, about one quarter of what you need for large targets, and about half of what you need for good situational awareness under normal circumstances.
Blocking doesn't activate quickly without a custom key bind. There are a few powers that make the delay even worse.
Most ATs need devices to heal, but the device keys require a two-handed key combination, which means a significant delay between the time that the heal is needed and the time that it is applied.
The Pet Status UI overlaps the Team Status UI.
The Open Mission UI overlaps the Mission UI. New players won't notice alert mission objectives because they are covered. This leads to things like having to fight all the extra mobs in Harmon labs, or killing mobs in Train Stopping before the Alert starts, and then failing. People get mad at them, and they don't know why.
A few of these things aren't counterpoints, but still support my original premise. It's not so much that the controls never work well, but rather that there are numerous power sets that are very frustrating to play with them, and many situations in which they hinder you.
I can't even count the number of times I see people in alerts that seem to be unable to adapt to having their target knocked a few feet, and just stand there for five or more seconds before engaging again. I see regular complaints about many of these things, both in game and on forums. Some of them get overlooked because they are ubiquitous in the mmorpg genre, but that doesn't mean that they work well.
I haven't yet made a serious attempt to play with a controller. Maybe that helps with some of the key proximity issues, but usually I just bind more convenient keys.
I'll address some of the points I either disagree with being hinderous controls or to suggest workarounds.
Melee and auto-follow: Latency and frame rates are more to do with hardware issues. Regardless of visual spam, the targeting reticle still stands out pretty well. Melee lunges are there for the player to close the gap quickly instead of having to run to their target.
Maximum zoom-out to 30 feet: For exceptionally huge targets like Mega-Destroids, yes, I agree that it's an issue. Thankfully notifications to huge attacks that require blocking are still shown in the enemy's target status icon.
Powers and movements on same fingers: Unfortunately since it's crucial to be using the mouse along with the keyboard, and that standard mice don't come with enough buttons for the wide array of powers available for use, this is unavoidable. The horizontal 1 -0 buttons make the most obvious choices. Then again, this isn't anything new considering that other MMORPGs do use it. Anyone who's played other MMOs with this sort of control layout might not find it all that out-of-place here.
Certain situations do put a heavy emphasis on movement to avoid certain dangers like Gravitar's bubbles, Hi Pan's Yin Yang or in Cybermind's alert, but in such situations it's more about running to get out danger than worrying about using the movement keys plus power keys. In more general situations, ranged players don't need a whole lot of movement to function, melee players have their lunges.
Devices needing 2 keys to activate: I think you're exaggerating how much of a delay is involved in having to hit an additional CTRL key. Both keys are hit in unison, not succession.
UI overlaps: UI window positions can be customized. This also can be found in other MMOs so any new player already familiar with the feature might easily figure it out.
Blocking: Maybe not absolutely instantaneous, but certainly far from being "too long" to activate.
Interaction key: Very situational and I don't agree that it's that big of a deal.
I'm not going to say that the default controls are 100% ideal, but they don't come off as being that bad to infuriate a player into leaving either. Also any new player who have played other video games before might already be aware that there's a thing called Settings / Options / Keybinds to do some tweaking to better suit their playing experience.
That is where advertising and new players come in. If you can attract new people to your game and get them to buy some stuff, you can use that money to develop more content.
I am voting that little changed. In fact as things are looking we are already falling back down to those points, and the net result was more harm than good was caused. If the advertising was positive I would have said we would have kept more than a few extra people out of that 900+ peak. But the way the charts are looking it doesn't even appear we did that much.
I am voting that little changed. In fact as things are looking we are already falling back down to those points, and the net result was more harm than good was caused. If the advertising was positive I would have said we would have kept more than a few extra people out of that 900+ peak. But the way the charts are looking it doesn't even appear we did that much.
Honestly, I'd attribute that to bad timing... I mean they did release a large nerf right in the middle of that advertising campaign after all...so new players got to experiance the game with an immediate nerf... that's not exactly good first impression material...
To be honest, what Biff said is about right... unless we get a show of good faith from PWE & Cryptic and they give us a decent sized actual content update we probably won't see much if any real growth... they could piggyback CO addvertisement off of their STO & NW ads or run a full force CO advertisement campaign again and it would likely only add a handful of new players, but nothing substantial...
Honestly, I'd attribute that to bad timing... I mean they did release a large nerf right in the middle of that advertising campaign after all...so new players got to experiance the game with an immediate nerf... that's not exactly good first impression material...
To be honest, what Biff said is about right... unless we get a show of good faith from PWE & Cryptic and they give us a decent sized actual content update we probably won't see much if any real growth... they could piggyback CO addvertisement off of their STO & NW ads or run a full force CO advertisement campaign again and it would likely only add a handful of new players, but nothing substantial...
Which is what I've been saying every time the statement of advertisement comes up; we've got nothing to show right now. And advertising it, no matter the intentions, is bad. And claiming bad press is still good press is just wrong headed. It only works if it drums of controversy, like how BioWare drummed up the controversy about sex in ME to get more pocket miners to buy the game.
I doubt it was the nerf that hurt, it was more or less the fact people were thinking that maybe Cryptic added the ability to be a villain player in game. Instead what they got was a device that lets them be a pre-selected villain. With the limited resources Cryptic has, there was little they could do to make it better, but the advertisement just did more harm than good in the long run.
Your right, the nerf probably wasn't the big thing that turned most of the new/returning players away... but I'm certain it was still a factor... timing a big nerf like that in the middle of an advertisement campaign meant to bring in new players is pretty bad planning... There's a reason that bigger companies hold off on nerfs around when they start a new advertising campaign... and usually when they do nerfs in the middle of advertising campaigns they are accompanied by several buffs (or in some cases phrased as buffs in the patch notes... I've seen it countless times)
I'll address some of the points I either disagree with being hinderous controls or to suggest workarounds.
-snip-
I'm not going to say that the default controls are 100% ideal, but they don't come off as being that bad to infuriate a player into leaving either. Also any new player who have played other video games before might already be aware that there's a thing called Settings / Options / Keybinds to do some tweaking to better suit their playing experience.
Knowing that there are control options doesn't mean that you know what your optimal set up should be. Experience with other games won't tell you how all those quirks in this on work. Also, it's a reasonable expectation to have controls that are good enough to leave on the default settings. Control customization should be for preference, not "necessary for some content."
I know how to deal with all of these things myself, it's the new players' experience I'm talking about. Don't explain how a committed player should handle them. Consider how a new undecided player would handle them. Consider also, that this player might not know anybody, and is probably still locked out of chat. Many will have poor problem solving skills, and many with developed problem solving skills will decide it's not worth their time.
I didn't say "It is the default controls that drive away new players." I said "It's kind of hard to retain people when the default controls are terrible and game play is extremely convoluted and inconsistent." If you think it's much more the latter than the former, I can't really say that I disagree, but the controls are major part of the early game experience, and will compound game play related frustration. A new player probably won't know that changing their control settings could help. They will notice that the game is "too hard," or has "fake difficulty." Unless they really like the costume editor, they're going to go look for something better, and probably find it.
So either immediately assume that a newly-joining player is an inept "scrub" who has no capability of exploring the game's features, learning how to deal with them to become more familiar with how the game works...
....or assume that once they do figure out how to get the best out of the system...
...it leads them to rage quit and therefore it's a severe enough thing that affects player retention.
This isn't speaking facts. This is using extremes, using the worst-case scenario and painting an entire group of players with that same brush, and then saying that it's something objectively true.
I'll wait till there's some form of official report or acknowledgement instead, followed by corrective actions by Cryptic to try to improve and revamp things to verify this claim. Until then, I'm not holding my breath.
So either immediately assume that a newly-joining player is an inept "scrub" who has no capability of exploring the game's features, learning how to deal with them to become more familiar with how the game works...
....or assume that once they do figure out how to get the best out of the system...
...it leads them to rage quit and therefore it's a severe enough thing that affects player retention.
This isn't speaking facts. This is using extremes, using the worst-case scenario and painting an entire group of players with that same brush, and then saying that it's something objectively true.
I'll wait till there's some form of official report or acknowledgement instead, followed by corrective actions by Cryptic to try to improve and revamp things to verify this claim. Until then, I'm not holding my breath.
I've personally known people who quit games over the default controls... I've asked them why they do it, and every single one of them has told me that they believe "if the default controls are bad then there's no reason to believe the rest of the game will be any good." Several friends of mine who have never even met eachother have told me that... if it was just one or two people or if they knew eachother I'd say it's just a coincidence or that they share a similar belief due to familiarity... but it's been several people who have never even met eachother... It would have to be one hell of a coincidence for them all to have the same belief and for this not to be a wide-spread belief... Of course I could be off and it is just one hell of a coincidence and there arn't a whole lot of people out there with that belief... but I find that unlikely...
So just because you know a guy who also knows a guy who knows a few other guys who all coincidentally have the same opinions about something, a much wider-spread belief is involved. Because familiarity. Because "it's too much of a coincidence". No study. No fact-finding involved. Just anecdotes and confirmation bias. Do I really need to point out the problem with that line of reasoning?
Coming from other MMOs, I never had any issues whatsoever with this game's default controls. I miss Follow being the F key, and one of these days I'll have to bind it to another key, but I only ever use it in certain unusual circumstances anyway. The only "default" I ever had issue with was the fact the video controls used to default to Half-Graphics On, and that seems to have been corrected.
Am I some sort of bizarre supergenius who was able to figure out the controls on the first try??
Incidentally, no, Block isn't "too slow" to activate - even on this crappy laptop with latency issues, I'm able to interrupt my own attack and pull up a Block when I see the enemy's tell. Saved my bacon a few times last night. (And I'm still thinking maybe it wasn't the smartest idea to take my flame-based toon to investigate the goings-on at an oil refinery... )
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
So either immediately assume that a newly-joining player is an inept "scrub" who has no capability of exploring the game's features, learning how to deal with them to become more familiar with how the game works...
No, people without problem solving skills can adapt, but they will weigh their desire to explore the game against the investment of effort that they must make in order to be gratified. They will base this on an extrapolation of their initial experience. Often they choose not to adapt, because it allows them to spend their time on things that are more rewarding.
....or assume that once they do figure out how to get the best out of the system...
...it leads them to rage quit and therefore it's a severe enough thing that affects player retention.
No, I said nothing to this effect. I mentioned a separate group that possesses problem solving skills, but regards the control issues unworthy of their time. These people are more likely to have mentally challenging jobs, or to assume other mentally challenging responsibilities. They put their energy into those things and are looking for a way to relax.
This isn't speaking facts. This is using extremes, using the worst-case scenario and painting an entire group of players with that same brush, and then saying that it's something objectively true.
That does not at all address what I said.
Within the group of people that quit, with control as a factor, I mentioned two distinct sub-groups. One with problem solving skills, and the other without. I've seen both quit. Those sub-groups were provided as examples of people making the same decision under differing circumstances. Their perspectives must both be considered for the purpose of user accessibility. It was not a generalization about the main group.
I'll wait till there's some form of official report or acknowledgement instead, followed by corrective actions by Cryptic to try to improve and revamp things to verify this claim. Until then, I'm not holding my breath.
Cryptic has just recently changed the default controls in an attempt to be more intuitive to new players. They announced it while preparing it, and when it was implemented. People discussed it on this forum.
Am I some sort of bizarre supergenius who was able to figure out the controls on the first try??
I can't say based on that alone, but you've got decades of experience, and you can't get your fix anywhere else.
Not that anyone has even said that the controls in this game are the main reason that new players quit, or that it takes an exceptional person to use them.
As for block, it's not the attacks with tells that are the issue in this case. Other attacks can hurt too, especially when they come from multiple sources. Maybe you don't care, but it was enough that there are people using a more reliable alternate bind. I'm not one of them, incidentally. I intended to at one time, but kept putting it off. I don't think it's actually faster. It's more like you sometimes get a dud when you use the default bind.
I am voting that little changed. In fact as things are looking we are already falling back down to those points, and the net result was more harm than good was caused. If the advertising was positive I would have said we would have kept more than a few extra people out of that 900+ peak. But the way the charts are looking it doesn't even appear we did that much.
I think that on average, I see about 1 more zone of MC than before. And it's also worth noting that PW finally started showing Champs on the arc website, so there are some people who are not being counted/reflected in the steam numbers alone. No, it's obviously not some huge growth, but it is more than we had before.
Which is what I've been saying every time the statement of advertisement comes up; we've got nothing to show right now.
That is only true if you are talking about returning players. But for new players, who have never played the game before, everything is "new" to them. So the game has "everything" to show to people who have never played it before, and I'm willing to bet that considering the game's age and lack of advertisement for the last few years, there are probably quite a few teens or young adults who simply aren't aware of it's existence.
That is only true if you are talking about returning players. But for new players, who have never played the game before, everything is "new" to them. So the game has "everything" to show to people who have never played it before, and I'm willing to bet that considering the game's age and lack of advertisement for the last few years, there are probably quite a few teens or young adults who simply aren't aware of it's existence.
^ absolutely true. This game has a lot of things to show someone who has never played it before. Just the costume editor alone is a huge thing when you compare it to other super hero titles out there. A five minute video where all you do is provide sweeping shots of costume contest participants could serve as an advertising campaign for this game, and that's just cracking the surface.
Am I some sort of bizarre supergenius who was able to figure out the controls on the first try??
There's a lot of hyperbole that happens on these forums regarding the cognitive abilities of the average gamer. They all seem to think that first time players of CO have about as much experience with video games as my parents do. According to some people around here you would in fact be a super genius simply because you were able to figure out the controls for a video game without a lengthy tutorial explaining how to move, the concept that pushing buttons causes something to happen in the game, what an option menu is, and what a hotkey is.
Am I some sort of bizarre supergenius who was able to figure out the controls on the first try??
There's a lot of hyperbole that happens on these forums regarding the cognitive abilities of the average gamer. They all seem to think that first time players of CO have about as much experience with video games as my parents do. According to some people around here you would in fact be a super genius simply because you were able to figure out the controls for a video game without a lengthy tutorial explaining how to move, the concept that pushing buttons causes something to happen in the game, what an option menu is, and what a hotkey is.
That's ok. When I first started playing WOW(first and worst MMO). The boy who introduced me to it, was surprised I picked it up so fast.
"12 years of data entry jobs will do that. You have to be able to pick up controls and function keys fast on any new system."
Wrong again Nepht. What we need are ride-able cats.
Nope, both of you are wrong. What we need are ride-able humans.
Well that's just vile
They are even better when stacked ontop of each other.
I went looking for the Monty Python reference on YouTube, but it turns out "Archaeology Today" runs for almost ten minutes before they start stacking.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
No, people without problem solving skills can adapt, but they will weigh their desire to explore the game against the investment of effort that they must make in order to be gratified. They will base this on an extrapolation of their initial experience. Often they choose not to adapt, because it allows them to spend their time on things that are more rewarding.
If you're making a factual, sweeping statement about how they "often" choose not to adapt, then I'd like to see some sort of analytical evidence to back up that claim when it comes to this playerbase.
No, I said nothing to this effect. I mentioned a separate group that possesses problem solving skills, but regards the control issues unworthy of their time. These people are more likely to have mentally challenging jobs, or to assume other mentally challenging responsibilities. They put their energy into those things and are looking for a way to relax.
"Likely" to have mentally challenging jobs? How do you come to this conclusion? Was any survey or study done on our players as to what kind of RL jobs they have? What if the player is a student? A dependent? A retiree? Any on mentally challenging responsibilities that actually affect how they perceive the controls?
Of course there aren't. You're making assumptions.
Within the group of people that quit, with control as a factor, I mentioned two distinct sub-groups. One with problem solving skills, and the other without. I've seen both quit. Those sub-groups were provided as examples of people making the same decision under differing circumstances. Their perspectives must both be considered for the purpose of user accessibility. It was not a generalization about the main group.
Entirely anecdotal and cognitive bias. You've personally seen a couple of examples, therefore it has to be as big of a problem and of an influence as you personally feel it is. Again, where's the evidence to show that it's happening on a much more significant and larger degree?
Cryptic has just recently changed the default controls in an attempt to be more intuitive to new players. They announced it while preparing it, and when it was implemented. People discussed it on this forum.
Sure, they did it to improve on the system. Doesn't automatically mean that it was done because the control scheme in its prior state was bad enough to be causing player retention issues.
All statistics are collections of abstracted anecdotal data.
Everything that Cryptic does is in part motivated by gaining and retaining players. That is where their money comes from. That's the entire point of having a "system" to improve, and you missed it.
You provide no counter argument, only denial and misdirection. You offer nothing of any substance, not even a claim that you are aware of a single case that differs from mine. It wouldn't even be hard to do. You are only "arguing" because I disagreed with you. Do you even remember what you were originally disputing?
A single case that differs from yours? What, you mean the fact that there are players, both gold and silver, who have consistently stayed playing up from the start up until level 40, meaning that they have adapted to the controls to stay playing by choice, meaning that they get some semblance of enjoyment from the game to be playing for that substantial amount of time, have made the journey from inexperienced newbie to experienced veteran, is not obvious enough? That right there completely invalidates your claim that new players "often" choose not to adapt, go seek something else rewarding, etc etc.
I'm clearly not the one in denial or doing any misdirecting here.
A single case that differs from yours? What, you mean the fact that there are players, both gold and silver, who have consistently stayed playing up from the start up until level 40, meaning that they have adapted to the controls to stay playing by choice, meaning that they get some semblance of enjoyment from the game to be playing for that substantial amount of time, have made the journey from inexperienced newbie to experienced veteran, is not obvious enough? That right there completely invalidates your claim that new players "often" choose not to adapt, go seek something else rewarding, etc etc.
I'm clearly not the one in denial or doing any misdirecting here.
Heck I would argue that there's not much adapting that even needs to be done. CO uses a fairly standard MMO user interface.
I'm talking mainly about players that left. You could provide an example of a person that left, but affirmed that the default controls did not negatively impact their experience. The people that stayed have some relevance to the subject, but not as much.
I never said that the default controls are difficult to learn. I said that they are terrible. They are not effective enough for the type of game play that is offered in Champions Online, and I provided examples of their shortcomings. I also stated that it has a negative impact on player retention. I did not indicate the magnitude of that impact, explicitly or implicitly.
When I say denial, I'm not referring to the psychological state. I don't mean that "you are in denial." I mean that you are denying what I say. The denial in of itself isn't a problem, but that denial isn't supported by anything. You're use of misdirection comes in the form of misrepresenting my claims, and personal attacks, where you implicitly and ironically portray me as a malicious elitist:
So either immediately assume that a newly-joining player is an inept "scrub" who has no capability of exploring the game's features, learning how to deal with them to become more familiar with how the game works...
....or assume that once they do figure out how to get the best out of the system...
...it leads them to rage quit and therefore it's a severe enough thing that affects player retention.
This isn't speaking facts. This is using extremes, using the worst-case scenario and painting an entire group of players with that same brush, and then saying that it's something objectively true.
I'll wait till there's some form of official report or acknowledgement instead, followed by corrective actions by Cryptic to try to improve and revamp things to verify this claim. Until then, I'm not holding my breath.
When I point out that it is possible to verify my position, you present the definition of a logical fallacy, implicitly accusing me of using it.
Every time you respond I have to clarify and restate my position because you continually obfuscate it. You respond as if I have claimed that nobody plays because the controls are too difficult, but I have done no such thing. You demand that I present a logically perfect argument while you shamelessly present fallacies in rapid succession. You do nothing to support your own position. You only attempt to undermine my position with manipulative behavior.
---
If we wanted to be scientific, I would collect data from users and then present it. After that, others would have to review it by gathering their own data, and then compare.
The relevant statistics here would probably include all of the people that have ever played. They would be split into four categories: Players that left with controls as a factor, players that left without controls as a factor, players that stayed, but changed their controls, and players that stayed and use the default controls. Staying and leaving would also be defined by a minimum period of activity rather than whether the player is currently active. If it is not mutually agreed upon, it could become a point of contention.
The number of players that left without controls a factor compared to The number of players that left with controls as a factor
If the difference is significant, it could be used to support one of our positions.
We could also look at:
The total number of players that stayed and used the default controls compared to The total number of players that Stayed and changed their controls
Comments
Uh, I've said the method I use. It's called the search engine in game. You can specify specific instances. I went down the list after I added the four instances, at the time, of MC together, then added the numbers I got from every other instance int eh game (and as long as there is an active instance it will show up on the list). Seriously Smack, I know you don't give two flips about what I write and only pick out specific sentences and such, but I've said I used the in game search engine at least two other times in this thread.
Or to put it another way, the people finder in the game is the auction house search engine we never got. (Yes, I went there)
In other news, comparing apples to apples (all Cryptic games) this is what Steam Charts says; (20 minutes ago/ 24 hour peak/ all-time)
Champions Online 237/327/984
Star Trek Online 1283/2284/7402
Neverwinter 1399/3551/14822
Given that STO I believe was put on Steam at roughly the same time as Champions, would you say those numbers are reflectively accurate of those two games player bases?
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No really, what's the point? It's as sistersilicon has said; it's over-exaggerating whatever impacts that might be involved. I wouldn't say it's self-destructive to the point it drives away players, but there's definitely nothing constructive about it. This is why I put emphasis on profit data that coincides with population trends to determine how much players are actually spending into the game and just how consistently. Play armchair statistician all you want with population numbers, it's meaningless without considering the money. Show that it's "barely" enough to keep the game running (something which I never said in the first place by the way) and that we have every reason to be absolutely worried and that it's not just unfounded alarmist fear.
Because less people means less income, which means less profits, which means less resources to be spent on said product. It's basic cause and effect, there is no armchair statistics about it.
You of all people jenny, should be familiar to that simple fact. It's not even an armchair statistic.
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What I'm clearly asking for is the profit data to show exactly how bad things are. The data, not more hypothesis.
Guess what! I don't read every post you make. So this search you do can account for everywhere anyone can be, including alerts and hideouts and stuff?
If it does, okay then, I believe you can get an accurate reading of how many players are on at any given moment. But, question: If you can already get this info, why lean on Steam info that's only showing a fraction of the actual population?
To answer your last question: I have no idea. Not sure why it matters.
You mean you really can't sit there and make a basic assumption on how bad things are by the fact they took and reskinned the Bite! event stuff basically and tweaked the code for villain fighting? Or the fact for the Blood Moon they basically copy pasta'd the ghost ship into Vibora Bay from Lemuria? Or the fact that new costumes are become less and less common now. When was the last actual C-Store costume we got? Variable Robot and that was what, in the first half of the year?
Not to mention our dev team is probably stressed beyond all levels. Arkayne, not only being lead here, is also the Senior Content Designer over on Neverwinter, and who knows what else. GMC is splitting his time and doing what he can, and no telling what the other devs are doing as well.
How bad are things, they don't look good. They are obviously trying to do with what little time they got and limited resources to do it in, and it shows. I dunno what tell you actually need to understand it, maybe the water coming up to your ankles, but there are signs all over of right now how "bad" things are as far as the state of the game.
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[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
That's because we're now moving from quantity to quality.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Wow, way to miss the point by more than a country mile Jon, as usual. I am not trying to prove that CO is dying I am stating I am worried about any future this game has. And pretending that such low numbers are just fine for Champions when I want this game to have a future is just asinine. And unless you're emptying a few thousand dollars a week into Champions, you can't say the game is doing fine.
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Wow, way to miss the point by more than a country mile Jon, as usual. I am not trying to prove that CO is dying I am stating I am worried about any future this game has. And pretending that such low numbers are just fine for Champions when I want this game to have a future is just asinine. And unless you're emptying a few thousand dollars a week into Champions, you can't say the game is doing fine.
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The game isn't doing fine. But the greater issue is how much money is being spent. Is the amount of money that those THAT ARE HERE are spending enough to justify more development work that can possible give us more content? (And thus increase the population as more things to do in game exist).
The population won't magically increase and stay up without an influx of development resources for CONTENT. (Not balance passes, but actual content-- things that folks can do).
It's why I find all the discussion of balance recently to be a bit silly. Balance passes are the LAST thing we need right now.
More content other than Onslaught and temporary event (blood moon) is what is needed. If there are limited dev resources (I'm sorry but as far as I can see they still are) then that should be the focus.
Not f*&^king balance passes.
Sadly I doubt Champions is making enough money to do more than Balance passes and redesigning old events with new skins. We know what the magic number was suppose to be; 100,000 or $1.5 million per month to be considered healthy. This is what Jack Emmert himself stated in a news article before Champions launched. So ignoring the 100,000 sustained player base with a subscription model, let's pretend that the magic number, hasn't changed from $1.5 million monthly due to rising costs of production and higher values needed. And let's pretend that Champions has 5,000 active players. That means that each and everyone of those players has to pay $300 a month.
But we well and know a large portion aren't even paying for the game just playing. So let's assume that maybe half of the people actually put money down. That means that 2500 people are burdened with having to pay $600 a month. But hell let's go for worst case scenario and say that only 1000 people are actually putting money down out of 5000... That means that those thousand people, to meet that goal, would have to be paying $1500 a month to meet the goal that was set back in 2009, and again, due to rising costs undoubtedly has gone up. I dunno about anyone else but $300 a month just for a game is a hefty price to pay, let alone $1500 a month.
And that's the other part of the ticket that people seem to forget. It takes money to get things done. They have to pay their developers (who are over taxed right now) they have to pay the bills, they have to pay for their net, their utilities and investors. And of all they have to make sure they stay in the black.
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"Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." -- W. Edwards Deming
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In order to get the types of updates that will encourage more players to spend more money we need more players to speend more money... See... it's a Catch 22...
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
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I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
- Objects must be clicked to be targeted, but if you are able to lift them, you will often do so when clicking on them.
- "Melee can Ignore Selected Target" is off. This is terrible for dealing with knocks and pulls/kiting by ranged characters.
- "Disable Hostile Target Auto Facing" and "Allow Turning When Facing Target" are on by default, which causes you to lose targets for PA toggles if your body turns, or they move.
- "Visible Auto Target" is off. You don't know what your target will default to if you select it with a key instead of click. Clicking reduces your response time.
- Power activation and movement are handled by the same fingers. Movement is an important part of this game when you don't have the power to steamroll everything. New players don't have the power to steamroll everything.
- The interaction key is used both for lifting objects and breaking holds. If you are held next to an object that you can lift, you pick it up. It significantly increases the time that you are helpless.
- Auto-Follow is unassigned. For melee characters, visual spam, latency, and frame rate issues can make moving targets impossible to attack without this feature. All of those things tend to vary wildly during play unless you have exceptionally good or bad hardware.
- Maximum zoom-out distance is set to 30 feet, about one quarter of what you need for large targets, and about half of what you need for good situational awareness under normal circumstances.
- Blocking doesn't activate quickly without a custom key bind. There are a few powers that make the delay even worse.
- Most ATs need devices to heal, but the device keys require a two-handed key combination, which means a significant delay between the time that the heal is needed and the time that it is applied.
- The Pet Status UI overlaps the Team Status UI.
- The Open Mission UI overlaps the Mission UI. New players won't notice alert mission objectives because they are covered. This leads to things like having to fight all the extra mobs in Harmon labs, or killing mobs in Train Stopping before the Alert starts, and then failing. People get mad at them, and they don't know why.
A few of these things aren't counterpoints, but still support my original premise. It's not so much that the controls never work well, but rather that there are numerous power sets that are very frustrating to play with them, and many situations in which they hinder you.I can't even count the number of times I see people in alerts that seem to be unable to adapt to having their target knocked a few feet, and just stand there for five or more seconds before engaging again. I see regular complaints about many of these things, both in game and on forums. Some of them get overlooked because they are ubiquitous in the mmorpg genre, but that doesn't mean that they work well.
I haven't yet made a serious attempt to play with a controller. Maybe that helps with some of the key proximity issues, but usually I just bind more convenient keys.
Melee and auto-follow:
Latency and frame rates are more to do with hardware issues. Regardless of visual spam, the targeting reticle still stands out pretty well. Melee lunges are there for the player to close the gap quickly instead of having to run to their target.
Maximum zoom-out to 30 feet:
For exceptionally huge targets like Mega-Destroids, yes, I agree that it's an issue. Thankfully notifications to huge attacks that require blocking are still shown in the enemy's target status icon.
Powers and movements on same fingers:
Unfortunately since it's crucial to be using the mouse along with the keyboard, and that standard mice don't come with enough buttons for the wide array of powers available for use, this is unavoidable. The horizontal 1 -0 buttons make the most obvious choices. Then again, this isn't anything new considering that other MMORPGs do use it. Anyone who's played other MMOs with this sort of control layout might not find it all that out-of-place here.
Certain situations do put a heavy emphasis on movement to avoid certain dangers like Gravitar's bubbles, Hi Pan's Yin Yang or in Cybermind's alert, but in such situations it's more about running to get out danger than worrying about using the movement keys plus power keys. In more general situations, ranged players don't need a whole lot of movement to function, melee players have their lunges.
Devices needing 2 keys to activate:
I think you're exaggerating how much of a delay is involved in having to hit an additional CTRL key. Both keys are hit in unison, not succession.
UI overlaps:
UI window positions can be customized. This also can be found in other MMOs so any new player already familiar with the feature might easily figure it out.
Blocking:
Maybe not absolutely instantaneous, but certainly far from being "too long" to activate.
Interaction key:
Very situational and I don't agree that it's that big of a deal.
I'm not going to say that the default controls are 100% ideal, but they don't come off as being that bad to infuriate a player into leaving either. Also any new player who have played other video games before might already be aware that there's a thing called Settings / Options / Keybinds to do some tweaking to better suit their playing experience.
I am voting that little changed. In fact as things are looking we are already falling back down to those points, and the net result was more harm than good was caused. If the advertising was positive I would have said we would have kept more than a few extra people out of that 900+ peak. But the way the charts are looking it doesn't even appear we did that much.
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To be honest, what Biff said is about right... unless we get a show of good faith from PWE & Cryptic and they give us a decent sized actual content update we probably won't see much if any real growth... they could piggyback CO addvertisement off of their STO & NW ads or run a full force CO advertisement campaign again and it would likely only add a handful of new players, but nothing substantial...
Which is what I've been saying every time the statement of advertisement comes up; we've got nothing to show right now. And advertising it, no matter the intentions, is bad. And claiming bad press is still good press is just wrong headed. It only works if it drums of controversy, like how BioWare drummed up the controversy about sex in ME to get more pocket miners to buy the game.
I doubt it was the nerf that hurt, it was more or less the fact people were thinking that maybe Cryptic added the ability to be a villain player in game. Instead what they got was a device that lets them be a pre-selected villain. With the limited resources Cryptic has, there was little they could do to make it better, but the advertisement just did more harm than good in the long run.
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I know how to deal with all of these things myself, it's the new players' experience I'm talking about. Don't explain how a committed player should handle them. Consider how a new undecided player would handle them. Consider also, that this player might not know anybody, and is probably still locked out of chat. Many will have poor problem solving skills, and many with developed problem solving skills will decide it's not worth their time.
I didn't say "It is the default controls that drive away new players." I said "It's kind of hard to retain people when the default controls are terrible and game play is extremely convoluted and inconsistent." If you think it's much more the latter than the former, I can't really say that I disagree, but the controls are major part of the early game experience, and will compound game play related frustration. A new player probably won't know that changing their control settings could help. They will notice that the game is "too hard," or has "fake difficulty." Unless they really like the costume editor, they're going to go look for something better, and probably find it.
....or assume that once they do figure out how to get the best out of the system...
...it leads them to rage quit and therefore it's a severe enough thing that affects player retention.
This isn't speaking facts. This is using extremes, using the worst-case scenario and painting an entire group of players with that same brush, and then saying that it's something objectively true.
I'll wait till there's some form of official report or acknowledgement instead, followed by corrective actions by Cryptic to try to improve and revamp things to verify this claim. Until then, I'm not holding my breath.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
Am I some sort of bizarre supergenius who was able to figure out the controls on the first try??
Incidentally, no, Block isn't "too slow" to activate - even on this crappy laptop with latency issues, I'm able to interrupt my own attack and pull up a Block when I see the enemy's tell. Saved my bacon a few times last night. (And I'm still thinking maybe it wasn't the smartest idea to take my flame-based toon to investigate the goings-on at an oil refinery...
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Within the group of people that quit, with control as a factor, I mentioned two distinct sub-groups. One with problem solving skills, and the other without. I've seen both quit. Those sub-groups were provided as examples of people making the same decision under differing circumstances. Their perspectives must both be considered for the purpose of user accessibility. It was not a generalization about the main group. Cryptic has just recently changed the default controls in an attempt to be more intuitive to new players. They announced it while preparing it, and when it was implemented. People discussed it on this forum.
I can't say based on that alone, but you've got decades of experience, and you can't get your fix anywhere else.
Not that anyone has even said that the controls in this game are the main reason that new players quit, or that it takes an exceptional person to use them.
As for block, it's not the attacks with tells that are the issue in this case. Other attacks can hurt too, especially when they come from multiple sources. Maybe you don't care, but it was enough that there are people using a more reliable alternate bind. I'm not one of them, incidentally. I intended to at one time, but kept putting it off. I don't think it's actually faster. It's more like you sometimes get a dud when you use the default bind.
The-Grand-Nagus
Join Date: Sep 2008
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
^ absolutely true. This game has a lot of things to show someone who has never played it before. Just the costume editor alone is a huge thing when you compare it to other super hero titles out there. A five minute video where all you do is provide sweeping shots of costume contest participants could serve as an advertising campaign for this game, and that's just cracking the surface.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
That's ok. When I first started playing WOW(first and worst MMO). The boy who introduced me to it, was surprised I picked it up so fast.
"12 years of data entry jobs will do that. You have to be able to pick up controls and function keys fast on any new system."
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Of course there aren't. You're making assumptions. Entirely anecdotal and cognitive bias. You've personally seen a couple of examples, therefore it has to be as big of a problem and of an influence as you personally feel it is. Again, where's the evidence to show that it's happening on a much more significant and larger degree? Sure, they did it to improve on the system. Doesn't automatically mean that it was done because the control scheme in its prior state was bad enough to be causing player retention issues.
Everything that Cryptic does is in part motivated by gaining and retaining players. That is where their money comes from. That's the entire point of having a "system" to improve, and you missed it.
You provide no counter argument, only denial and misdirection. You offer nothing of any substance, not even a claim that you are aware of a single case that differs from mine. It wouldn't even be hard to do. You are only "arguing" because I disagreed with you. Do you even remember what you were originally disputing?
I'm clearly not the one in denial or doing any misdirecting here.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I never said that the default controls are difficult to learn. I said that they are terrible. They are not effective enough for the type of game play that is offered in Champions Online, and I provided examples of their shortcomings. I also stated that it has a negative impact on player retention. I did not indicate the magnitude of that impact, explicitly or implicitly.
When I say denial, I'm not referring to the psychological state. I don't mean that "you are in denial." I mean that you are denying what I say. The denial in of itself isn't a problem, but that denial isn't supported by anything. You're use of misdirection comes in the form of misrepresenting my claims, and personal attacks, where you implicitly and ironically portray me as a malicious elitist: When I point out that it is possible to verify my position, you present the definition of a logical fallacy, implicitly accusing me of using it.
Every time you respond I have to clarify and restate my position because you continually obfuscate it. You respond as if I have claimed that nobody plays because the controls are too difficult, but I have done no such thing. You demand that I present a logically perfect argument while you shamelessly present fallacies in rapid succession. You do nothing to support your own position. You only attempt to undermine my position with manipulative behavior.
If we wanted to be scientific, I would collect data from users and then present it. After that, others would have to review it by gathering their own data, and then compare.
The relevant statistics here would probably include all of the people that have ever played. They would be split into four categories: Players that left with controls as a factor, players that left without controls as a factor, players that stayed, but changed their controls, and players that stayed and use the default controls. Staying and leaving would also be defined by a minimum period of activity rather than whether the player is currently active. If it is not mutually agreed upon, it could become a point of contention.
compared to
The number of players that left with controls as a factor
If the difference is significant, it could be used to support one of our positions.
We could also look at:
compared to
The total number of players that Stayed and changed their controls