Zone Population

[Choose Profile]

Sure, the ammo system isnt a horrible idea. But it doesnt seem to be good enough to keep players in the zone. Since the reset occured, the zone population has been steadily declining by the day. Now its to the point where maybe 12 people are actually playing during our peak times (Approx. 7pm). This is getting abysmal.

 

Honestly I like the ammo system, it adds another interesting dynamic to the game which is unprecedented for subspace zones. On the other hand, the statistics are showing that its greatly affecting our population and at this rate, its just going to be 15 speccers playing idlerpg all day long by themselves. I have talked to approx 10-15 players about why they are flocking AWAY from hyperspace to other zones (such as back to their original zone) and all my responses are coming back unanimously against the ammo system.

 

I feel the only way to boost our population back up is to remove the ammo system. Im all for the new item changes and implementations but the ammo system itself should be removed.

 

At this point our average population is just under less than half what it was one month ago, before the reset. Note that during this time last month our population sizes were steady and not on the decline, and the population trend downwards only began after the reset and implementation of the ammo system. The zones highest peak population over the last month came right after the reset (86), and as of yesterday our highest population in a 24 hour population was about half.

 

Heres some grafffsss.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Added from a later reply:

 

It seems the big problem !@#$%^&*ociated with ammo usage has to do with flagging and attacking. When the pub teams try to attack a defending team, they are spending their money on guns, bomb, repels, and burst when they really dont have money to spare. This is causing them to go broke and pay to attack, PAYING to play the game. Then when they begin to go broke they tighten up, try to not spend, and have no chance of forming an effective attack force. Weight is given to the defending them as they easily rack up money and destroy passive attacking teams that try to attack but not go broke doing it. Its a flawed system.

 

Note: The above also applies to turret fighting as well. Its ineffective to spend lots of money (lots to a beginning player) on repels, thors, and bombs trying to take down a turret which is running over everything in site.

Edited February 21, 2008 by Choose Profile

[Jnkickingass]

agreed. new settings/system is killing the pop. change it back to the old settings

[Sharpflame]

I think the server change has had the biggest impact, people don't know how to get back into HS.

[James1293]

How many forum topics does it take to change a SS zone?

 

 

EDIT: tho i agree w/ sf

Edited February 21, 2008 by James1293

[ipwn]

I agree with sharpy! Most players peek in and see a red zone and assume it died. They don't spend the time like us true addicts to reload the ip and ports...

 

I really like the ammo system. It provides a truly interesting aspect to the game. In addition, it gives you something to always spend money on even when your ships are maxed out.

[Choose Profile]

The population, although over a small sample size, has continued to decline since the server switch. Just as I stated in my OP, that of the 10-15 people i talked to that no longer are playing in the zone, all of them knew the zone moved, and 90% of them cited the ammo system as why they left. The other couple left because... there was no one else playing. go figure.

[James1293]

hey CP where did you get those graphs

 

P.S: 8 ppl reading topic ftw

[Choose Profile]

hey CP where did you get those graphs

 

P.S: 8 ppl reading topic ftw

 

http://stats.trenchwars.org/

[Russky]

give it some more time till all those hard core people get around to doing it... a small suggestion is to restrict private freq for a while after reset... to promote some sort of team action? or more public days or something to help those people that come in and get discouraged because of a private

[Choose Profile]

priv team is already limited to 6 people, 6 vs massive pub isnt very effective.

 

It seems the big problem !@#$%^&*ociated with ammo usage has to do with flagging and attacking. When the pub teams try to attack a defending team, they are spending their money on guns, bomb, repels, and burst when they really dont have money to spare. This is causing them to go broke and pay to attack, PAYING to play the game. Then when they begin to go broke they tighten up, try to not spend, and have no chance of forming an effective attack force. Weight is given to the defending them as they easily rack up money and destroy passive attacking teams that try to attack but not go broke doing it. Its a flawed system.

[Suicide_Run]

Russky, changing priv freq size wont matter since its not worth it for the attacking team to attack.

 

I personally dont think repel should be a consumable item. Just it people spawn with 2 repels max every life and 1 is given from combo mount making people who dont spend their signature item on combo mount have 1 repel. That way, new/old players can have a chance to help attack without using money.

[Matrim Cauthon]

Russky, changing priv freq size wont matter since its not worth it for the attacking team to attack.

agreed, right now 1 fully upgraded med ship(3,4,5,6) can hold an entire base, as i've proven today by defending against 3 almost barely upgraded rushers and their lanc.

[Pity.]

CP, I agree with you completely. And if i'm not wrong, keep in mind the whole ammo thing is not only guns/bombs. Ammo on gun/bomb does not have a hunge impact at all. It does nothing except forcing player to press their preset macr every 10 min or so. The biggest problem is other consumables. Ammo costs money; no one wants to attack and looose money at the same time. There is just NO WAY a attacking team can successfully win without using repel/rockets/bursts/thors/bricks: They're part of the game. HS's biggest problem right is how unbalanced it is. If your gunna make those items cost money, they should be treaded as a bonus( they're all weak anyway. bursts sucks,repel sucks.) so you should also be able to rush successfully without items. But that's not the case. Cearly, bombs/guns are way more overpowered. It only takes a couple shots to kill a ship, bases are too small to even attempt to dodge bullets, and defenders use big heavy gunner/bomber ships while attackers are stuck with low energy ships for faster movement and half energy because of attaching. Btying, the massic items use are all part of hs, and has always been. What your doing right now is basically changing your whole zone and making everyone accept the changes. This is not Hyperspace anymore, might as well call it Loserspace or something. I hope you staff out there know what you need to do. Listen to the players, make necessary changes.

[Sharpflame]

I'm hoping that for basing, just new bases that are wider open will fix the basing issue. Basing will probably last a lot longer if the attackers always have some sort of chance.

[Masaru]

The balancing issue is an ongoing process. None of the previous sets we've used were perfect from the get-go. With a dynamic zone that is Hyperspace, people should expect new and greater things to come as time goes on. I mean, it's only been like what, 10 days since these new settings have been put in? No need to be shouting bloody murder on a fresh set so early

[Dr Brain]

During any change, you anger some people, and please others. We've had this problem at least three times before. The problem is that the angry people are the ones playing your zone, and the pleased ones haven't heard about your change yet (since they left a while ago). The population will eventually return. I'd rather make the gameplay better and lose half the zone than the alternative of keeping bad gameplay forever.

 

Yes basing sucks, but I promise you that it will get better. Once it does, there's no guarantee that the players that left will come back, but we're sure to pick up entirely new ones.

[cow888]

I'm hoping that for basing, just new bases that are wider open will fix the basing issue. Basing will probably last a lot longer if the attackers always have some sort of chance.

Did anyone ever consider that there might be an actual reason bursts and repels are consumable? The more items cost, the less they are spammed. Unless someone can make a coherent argument for MOAR SPAM, what we really need are base reworks.

[Suicide_Run]

I know reps/thors/etc. were consumable because it was made so people cant item spam like before ammo system was introduced. The problem is, we r basically doing the polar opposite instead of finding the balance. Before it was constant item spam, now its barely anyone using items. Even if people buy items for basing rite now, they will end up stopping after a bit cause they will see theres no progress because they are the only one using items.

 

You would need to rework ALL the bases (probably except 4/6) if any reworking has to be done. Besides, there will always be 1-2 choke points that make it impossible for attackers to get through unless they spam items.

[Sass]

*chime*

 

Generally I've found that switching things will kill a loyal pop, and if the zone was simple enough to replicate, there would be rip-offs appearing within days. We had this problem in Omega Fire when we switched the setts. Although I believed that my new setts were superior, it was my inability to listen to the loyal players and as a result we lost pop. From there OF eventually went to nothingness. After the change in setts I tried many ideas but nothing worked. We tried new events, tried having 'retro' days to entice a few of the OF vets to come back, we even found a sponsor and held compe!@#$%^&*ions in which players were given real money for winning - hundreds of dollars were dished out to save the zone. It didn't work. OF population grew because players liked the setts and gameplay. Once that changes it's like trying to get people to try your 'new' zone.

 

Other zones have also experienced this same phenomena which Brain believes he can magically avoid. Whomever designed the ammo system probably doesn't care about his population - or has made decisions based on inexperience while riding the good times. Perhaps some new coding can improve the ammo system, but as several people have mentioned, ammo is designed for 1st person and CTF style zones - not flagging, despite what the ammo creators believe.

[James1293]

I agree with S!@#$%^&*. If something isnt done soon, The HS population will really die.

[tcsoccer and neptune]

i don't play anymore because i don't want to

 

mostly because of the HUGE basing games and HS got boring after 2 years

[Choose Profile]

During any change, you anger some people, and please others. We've had this problem at least three times before. The problem is that the angry people are the ones playing your zone, and the pleased ones haven't heard about your change yet (since they left a while ago). The population will eventually return. I'd rather make the gameplay better and lose half the zone than the alternative of keeping bad gameplay forever.

 

Yes basing sucks, but I promise you that it will get better. Once it does, there's no guarantee that the players that left will come back, but we're sure to pick up entirely new ones.

 

First of all I'd like to point out that by ammo system, i not only mean guns & bombs, but i also mean consumable such as repels, bursts and thors which requires refills.

 

Brain, although I can't argue with you about how this has happened in the past, I really fail how to see in what ways the ammo/consumable system will make gameplay better. The idea of using an ammo/consumable system to reduce item spam is a great one, but upon actually implementing such a system (at least the way it is designed now), it fails.

 

Brain, you stated earlier that one driving force behind the ammo idea was the prevent bountyers, but this system is causing very little harm to them at all. At most the ammo system causes them 10 seconds of annoyance as they have to pm a lanc to park next to an ammo depot for them. Other than that the system does nothing at all. Defenders and bountyers easily make enough to pay for whatever costs ammo imposes on them, and the only people the system is hurting is those attacking rather than defending. The attacks make very little money trying to push into a base, all the while spending what money they do have on consumables (reps, burst, thors) and more ammo.

 

The general idea to hinder spammage and base bountying is decent, but this particular route of solving the problem is uneffective, and the side effects are far worse than the benefits.

Edited February 21, 2008 by Choose Profile

[Clutter]

As you've seen above - Brain would rather improve game play in the zone than have population. Nothing is going to change and we all know that. It seems once upper staff decide on an idea they stick with it, despite how it reflects on their zone's pop. About half the people on my squad have left due to this new system. And as S!@#$%^&* has said above, this has happened to various other zones all of which are either dead or dying.

[Dr Brain]

Other zones have also experienced this same phenomena which Brain believes he can magically avoid. Whomever designed the ammo system probably doesn't care about his population - or has made decisions based on inexperience while riding the good times. Perhaps some new coding can improve the ammo system, but as several people have mentioned, ammo is designed for 1st person and CTF style zones - not flagging, despite what the ammo creators believe.

 

I had this discussion with you in game, and while I've given up on you ever understanding where I'm coming from, I'm going to quote you and reply in an effort to help others understand my position. A counter reply is not necessary.

 

I have never had zone population as an indicator of success. I don't care about population beyond the fact that it's easier to balance settings with more people online. If I feel a change is necessary (as in the case of basing with item spam) I will make that change regardless of how my current player base feels about it. I'm not making the zone for the player base of the month, I'm making it for me. I'm making a zone I would enjoy to play. If you don't like it, feel free to move on like the hundreds of players before you.

 

I did the exact same thing two or three years ago, when I completely redid all the settings. The zone population dropped to 1/3, but those that stayed liked it a lot more, and eventually we grew to a larger pop than before. People were screaming at me that I'd killed the zone, as they are now (actually, truth be told, fewer people have been complaining this time around).

 

Being supreme dictator means that I have to accept all the blame for decision that has been detrimental. On the other hand, it also means I get credit for bringing the zone to this point. If there was population to kill, it means I somehow managed to get population. If I've done it in the past, you'll have to trust my judgment to get it back.

 

I don't have any desire to alienate people, but when it's a choice between population and gameplay, I'll choose gameplay every time.

[Syrith]

Just add a 2nd arena with the old settings and see how many ppl start playing again. (Check the Public Arenas post in Zone development)