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Bounty 1 Apr, 2018 @ 6:39am
Why new players shouldn't play with experienced players? (promotions and difficulty suggestion)
We see this everyday. People are playing on Brutal difficulty with their friends and then this 3 lvl guy who installed game 10 min ago joined. There's usually 3 options:

- he'll be kicked immediately
- he'll team kill one or few people and they'll kick him
- he'll die one or few times at the beginning and leave

There's rare situations, when the new player will enjoy playing on high difficulty. Sometimes people are joining to games with high amount of players without paying attention or caring about the difficulty. If you're this new player, you may not know what just happend, why they kicked you, you may be♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥off and start hating community.

Playing with people who have much lower / higher skill level is breaking your game experience

Let's say we have team of 4 total newbies and 4 players who played for a long time. We also have Brutal difficulty, because one of the good players is leader. What can and probably will happen:

Experienced players need to deal with extra spawns caused by 4 newbies, who can't really deal with them, they can't expect any basic coop from them, they may be shoted or killed by one or more new players, they're annoyed of chaos caused by them, they're trying to kick newbies.

New players however have no idea what is happening, they see pure chaos, they're dying at the beggining, they see people rushing only and think it's the only way to play the game, good players are taking all fun by hacking panels, destroying doors, killing big aliens etc, making newbies feel useless, they can't see anything because they're focused on not dying all the time, making them feel like playing survival game instead of coop and they're leaving.

It's not a good idea to split players only because they're better / worse than others. But games like this are breaking fun for everyone. We also have promotions that are useless and give nothing. So I was thinking about connecting Promotions and difficulty. For example a fresh player who just installed the game will not be able to play on difficulty higher than easy and normal. Promoting themself will unlock higher difficulties. There's a few good things about this:

- people will have a reason to promote
- people will have enough time to learn game basics without dying in 30 sec after mission started
- games will be more balanced
- new players will not lose their fun
- new players will no longer be able to get all difficulty achievements in one game by making (or watching others making) maps on brutal
- new players will not be able to join games on brutal
- it will greatly decrease kicking people from servers
- people will have reason to repeat missions
Last edited by Bounty; 3 Apr, 2018 @ 3:33am
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Showing 16-30 of 38 comments
Bounty 5 Apr, 2018 @ 9:30am 
Most of the players are casuals who usually play easy / normal / hard. Those people are joining to harder games only because those games are always full of players. I'm pretty sure it's killing community harder than forcing people to play lower difficulty first.
#16
Duke M 5 Apr, 2018 @ 9:46am 
Originally posted by Bounty:
Most of the players are casuals who usually play easy / normal / hard. Those people are joining to harder games only because those games are always full of players. I'm pretty sure it's killing community harder than forcing people to play lower difficulty first.
This.
Getting the players together with players at their rank/skill/expertise... is like (IS LIKE, not the same) Matchmaking.

byblos idea is good too, the playerbase is probably not big enough to make something like this on the lower difficulty levels. So maybe just two rules?
Vanadium: Access to Insane
Gold: Access to Brutal

It's long ago that I did these stuff so my memory could be failing me about the skill-at-promotion-stuff. I am not sure at which point someone could be worth to play in an brutal team.

@byblo: unlocking weapons and achivements do have their place in the game-mechanic already, I have a hard time to imagine how this could be done without interfering current mechanics
Last edited by Duke M; 5 Apr, 2018 @ 9:50am
#17
Bounty 5 Apr, 2018 @ 9:51am 
True. But promoting so many times to unlock one difficulty...idk. There need to be something more
#18
Nyu (Banned) 5 Apr, 2018 @ 11:56am 
btw it will not work on all these private hosted servers.
it would mean 2 things: leader cannot choose brutal with low promoguys
or low promo insta d/c the moment the leader switsches difficulty.

but the biggest problem are the server admins. they do whatever they want. (its there server , so they have the right for that) but the
some are also listed as official servers and these admins still abuse all there rights against newbies.

EVERYONE of the admin did this.

so the best thing to get it working is like a playtime check to block access to special servers.
BUT no hope.
#19
top vroom vroom 5 Apr, 2018 @ 9:05pm 
Originally posted by Duke Duke'em:
@byblo: unlocking weapons and achivements do have their place in the game-mechanic already, I have a hard time to imagine how this could be done without interfering current mechanics
I was thinking more on a permanent unlocking system. Not the current system where all the weapons are just locked again when promoting to the next medail, which was pointless. Old repetitive medails system should be abandonned and replaced by some automatic promotion system, maybe slower, where the player will see unlocked weapons, difficulty access, ect forever. Everytime you get a new medail, you unlock some stuffs. First weapons maybe, then difficulties on higher medails. Or some mix.
#20
zerodepth 8 Apr, 2018 @ 7:45am 
I like this game because it is skill based (you dont need any EXP) and I would not introduce it (locking higher difficulties beyond promotions). In my experience (level one challenge) new players are better players than most guys with 6 promotions (aka dont have bad habits and they do cooperate with you; most 6 prom guys just rush and die in 10 seconds without GL/saw/flamer/tesla/ECA/freeze nades/... and instantly claiming its impossible and leaving ^^).
#21
Duke M 8 Apr, 2018 @ 7:55am 
Wouldn't unlocking other stuff also motivate new players to join more difficult games (to which they do not fit) to get xp faster?
#22
Nyu (Banned) 8 Apr, 2018 @ 8:56am 
yeah alot of skill is needed to remember the spawn and shoot till they are gone.
such wow, much fun.

level one is nothing special for skill. just a other way to play.
#23
Duke M 8 Apr, 2018 @ 9:02am 
Originally posted by Nyu:
yeah alot of skill is needed to remember the spawn and shoot till they are gone.
such wow, much fun.

level one is nothing special for skill. just a other way to play.
would you mind stop whining and come up with something constructive?
Last edited by Duke M; 8 Apr, 2018 @ 9:03am
#24
Nyu (Banned) 8 Apr, 2018 @ 9:16am 
says the guy who wants exp on costum mods and does not even know whats up in the game at the moment.

the whole system will not fitt in the game.

only quite good system is the hour restriction on some servers.
like i already said.
was a nice idea of gandalfadmin. (i think he did it first)
#25
Duke M 8 Apr, 2018 @ 10:04am 
I once thought you are a really nice person Nyu, but I really wonder what happened to you when I look at the arrogant stuff you post on this forums these days.
#26
Nyu (Banned) 8 Apr, 2018 @ 10:11am 
if u start crybaby things. what u thing?

u get what u give
#27
Duke M 8 Apr, 2018 @ 10:12am 
Originally posted by Nyu:
if u start crybaby things. what u thing?

u get what u give
this has nothing to do with me, just have a look at your posts:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/id/Margotten/posthistory/
#28
Bounty 8 Apr, 2018 @ 11:29am 
Originally posted by zerodepth:
most 6 prom guys just rush and die in 10 seconds without GL/saw/flamer/tesla/ECA/freeze nades/... and instantly claiming its impossible and leaving ^^).

without? Most of 6 prom don't even know how to use those weapons properly. Promotions means nothing. Many AS veterans didn't even promote in RD because there's no reason to do it. Different loadouts require different play style. Also, there's a difference between playing fast (skipping hard spawns and saving ammo) and rushing all the time. The problem is many people seems to not see this difference.
Last edited by Bounty; 8 Apr, 2018 @ 11:31am
#29
Nyu (Banned) 8 Apr, 2018 @ 11:46am 
Originally posted by Duke Duke'em:
Originally posted by Nyu:
yeah alot of skill is needed to remember the spawn and shoot till they are gone.
such wow, much fun.

level one is nothing special for skill. just a other way to play.
would you mind stop whining and come up with something constructive?
u startet it? haha
why does my other post have to do how senseless u act here?

i gave my feedback to this thread and u startet the crybabie thing
sorry for people having an opinion. u could never deal with that fact.


so back to topic.
able too choose min playhours on public host would be good like max hours too.
like 10 50 and 100
and i am not talking to u duke. pls dont answer with childish things again.
#30
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Alien Swarm: Reactive Drop > Bug Reports / Feedback > Topic Details
Date Posted: 1 Apr, 2018 @ 6:39am
Posts: 38

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