Increasing competitiveness/fanbase.

In recent weeks, there have been numerous amount of threads being posted complaining about the lack of skill coming from the new generation of AW players. The amount of Old Guard players are slowly depreciating. Some argue that the game fails to entertain high ranks in the long run (who have been long supporters of the game) yet on the other hand some argue the game lacks competitiveness in areas most needed i.e. Eu games, world maps. The lack of skill coming from lower ranks means the game gets less interesting since there is no competition left in the game. Clan leaders are frequently getting frustrated about the lack of interest from low ranks and they start losing interest in the game ... and the chain goes on and on. Experienced players know that Eu games (possibly with 100+) are key to develop your AW skills. The rise in Custom maps however prevents low ranks to gain full knowledge and skill to play AW on an advanced level.

So I decided to step up with an idea that may help boost that competitive factor which is needed in this game.



Lousy editing aside, by organising 2 sub rooms for Main and Casual by the names "Default maps" which include the obvious Eu maps to the large World maps, and "Custom maps" which include your maps made by the AW Cartographers. When logged in, players automatically join in the Main Default maps lobby. Up to their own free will, they decide if they want to join the Custom maps lobby.

This allows players to choose what room they want to play in. This does not allow competitive low ranked players with really good potential mixing with lower skill ability players who play custom maps.

If I were to go further, I would put a rank restriction on all custom maps, ranks from rank 5+. Taking the above idea on board, we could possibly introduce custom map cws in the future (once the game's population increases to its full extent).

My idea is my way of stepping forward in the competitiveness department. Feel free to bring your support, opinion and ideas into the discussion. Keep it clean though, no derailing and follow the rules. Also feel free to talk about changing the rank restriction in the beginners lobby and main lobby. I want this implemented as much as anyone and I figure to do that I need to be committed just like Tophats was with his Hybrid warfare idea. No I know being committed and me don't get along very well but if the game's gonna have better players as a result of this idea, then I might as well give it a dam well good try! On average, 4-5 cws are played a week. Now I'm not saying this isn't good progress, it certainly is as we were looking at 1-2 cws a week on average, a year ago. But we can play so much more if we had a better competition base!

This game had potential. This game has potential. I don't wanna come back next year and say the same thing. I want to say this game has fulfilled it's potential with a large fanbase.

Thanks for your time!

Well how exactly would this work? Wouldnt the noobs just sit in the Custom game lobby? I do like this though. More competitive players means more elo for me :3


Full support

I squirted.

I support

Support O_O

Általa írva Guest, 22.09.2013 at 12:14

The rise in Custom maps however prevents low ranks to gain full knowledge and skill to play AW on an advanced level.

Its not about custom maps in general. But scenarios like UN or WW2 just to mention two very popular examples where you have multiple starting countries, walls and existing units in predefined positions are a factor that minimizes the tactical decision making of the player as well as other necessary skills involved in competitive gaming.

The Players of these scenarios enjoy being safe and not losing within the first couple of rounds. They are the exact same kind of players who enjoyed allying everyone back in the days where there was the world map only. I think we should accept that a vast mojority of the players in this game doesnt have what it takes to catch up or keep up with the competitive elite here.

In my opinion restrictions wouldnt change anything in your favour. Just some people wouldnt be able to play their favourite maps anymore.

The only long time solution i see to this problem is a bigger player base in general.

Általa írva Guest, 22.09.2013 at 12:14

In recent weeks, there have been numerous amount of threads being posted complaining about the lack of skill coming from the new generation of AW players. The amount of Old Guard players are slowly depreciating. Some argue that the game fails to entertain high ranks in the long run (who have been long supporters of the game) yet on the other hand some argue the game lacks competitiveness in areas most needed i.e. Eu games, world maps. The lack of skill coming from lower ranks means the game gets less interesting since there is no competition left in the game. Clan leaders are frequently getting frustrated about the lack of interest from low ranks and they start losing interest in the game ... and the chain goes on and on. Experienced players know that Eu games (possibly with 100+) are key to develop your AW skills. The rise in Custom maps however prevents low ranks to gain full knowledge and skill to play AW on an advanced level.

So I decided to step up with an idea that may help boost that competitive factor which is needed in this game.

Lousy editing aside, by organising 2 sub rooms for Main and Casual by the names "Default maps" which include the obvious Eu maps to the large World maps, and "Custom maps" which include your maps made by the AW Cartographers. When logged in, players automatically join in the Main Default maps lobby. Up to their own free will, they decide if they want to join the Custom maps lobby.

This allows players to choose what room they want to play in. This does not allow competitive low ranked players with really good potential mixing with lower skill ability players who play custom maps.

If I were to go further, I would put a rank restriction on all custom maps, ranks from rank 5+. Taking the above idea on board, we could possibly introduce custom map cws in the future (once the game's population increases to its full extent).

My idea is my way of stepping forward in the competitiveness department. Feel free to bring your support, opinion and ideas into the discussion. Keep it clean though, no derailing and follow the rules. Also feel free to talk about changing the rank restriction in the beginners lobby and main lobby. I want this implemented as much as anyone and I figure to do that I need to be committed just like Tophats was with his Hybrid warfare idea. No I know being committed and me don't get along very well but if the game's gonna have better players as a result of this idea, then I might as well give it a dam well good try! On average, 4-5 cws are played a week. Now I'm not saying this isn't good progress, it certainly is as we were looking at 1-2 cws a week on average, a year ago. But we can play so much more if we had a better competition base!

This game had potential. This game has potential. I don't wanna come back next year and say the same thing. I want to say this game has fulfilled it's potential with a large fanbase.

Thanks for your time!

First of all. Can you remove the image of your message? Or atleast change the size of the image, because is deforming the forum.

Second, you are confunding therms:
Maps, Scenarios and Presets are not same.
True World War II and UN Game (Cronus & Cpt.Magic) are SCENARIOS.
If you ask to me there are some MAPS that are equal or SUPERIOR comparing them to the default map in therms of strategy. In fact there are some maps that are NEW possibilities of strategy to the gameplay.

The real problem of this game is:

*People playing only scenarios.
*Competitive players that dont give a chance to Custom Maps, really there are some maps in where you can play interestings 3 vs 3.

I support this idea

Restricting game play for new players might turn them away from the game. You want to make the game as interesting as possible for new players so they want to stay. It is possible to start by playing custom maps and then eventually move on to EU+ and world.

No support.

No man!!!! ....dont separate the games. Hell this would just do the opposite ...i would sit on my ass for even longer waiting for someone to notice i created the game.

Általa írva VRIL, 22.09.2013 at 12:41

Általa írva Guest, 22.09.2013 at 12:14

The rise in Custom maps however prevents low ranks to gain full knowledge and skill to play AW on an advanced level.

Its not about custom maps in general. But scenarios like UN or WW2 just to mention two very popular examples where you have multiple starting countries, walls and existing units in predefined positions are a factor that minimizes the tactical decision making of the player as well as other necessary skills involved in competitive gaming.

The Players of these scenarios enjoy being safe and not losing within the first couple of rounds. They are the exact same kind of players who enjoyed allying everyone back in the days where there was the world map only. I think we should accept that a vast mojority of the players in this game doesnt have what it takes to catch up or keep up with the competitive elite here.

In my opinion restrictions wouldnt change anything in your favour. Just some people wouldnt be able to play their favourite maps anymore.

The only long time solution i see to this problem is a bigger player base in general.

It is not about WWII or other scenarios like that, it is UN. It takes a lot of skill to play a WWII. While yes, you may not lose immediately, but if you don't play well then you can't get anywhere in a WWII. When I was a young player (rank 3) I played The True WWII for the first time as Nazi Germany, and I left very quickly realising that I sucked.

Általa írva KYBL, 22.09.2013 at 13:52

It takes a lot of skill to play a WWII.

I dont deny it. But if you focus on scenarios you will NEVER be able to keep up with the competitive players. While vice versa it is no problem at all for a decent competitive player to catch up with with the best scenario players after just a couple of games to get used to it. This is not only because of their wider knowledge of the game but also their different mindset which is just as important. That is why I claim this suggestion would have no positive impact on competitive play.
You can change stuff back and forth and implement new things but you cannot change the persons who play this game. Players who do have the mindset ( aka 'what it takes' as I wrote in my first post ) to be better than most other players will not focus on scenarios in the first place, they try to acquire more responsibilty in game and take their time to learn
what this game has to offer and explore things on their own. But they will always remain a minority here.

Guys honestly, the game is doing well the way it is. If the competitive class diminishes and eventually disappears then so be it. But I don't think that will happen. The competitive class will always exist, except of course as a minority. It's not even that bad at the moment anyway, we still have plenty of activity in the competitive class. And in the future, it'll get even more active. Never surpassing the custom map users and such, but i think both classes will increase in activity.

Atwar is doing very well at the moment, I mean 500+ players online at peak is quite an improvement from before.

However, I would support an idea where every time you log in you must choose between the scenario/custom map lobby and the competitive lobby. It won't do much, but it could stir some interesting results. Also have this feature for new players who join, (after they're done tutorial) have another message box asking them "scenario/custom map lobby or the competitive lobby". This also could encourage more low ranks to choose the competitive class over the scenarios/custom maps class. This could increase more activity for the competitive class and not really affecting the scenarios and custom maps class because it's already popular enough.

I support

Thanks for posting guys.

First thing, I saw a post about sitting on ur arse all day waiting for a game to be opened. I thought of that and it sounds like a reasonable opinion to halt this idea, but if we think it through the long run while the fan base increases you won't have to do much waiting.

Whilst I agree with Vril and tophats, that there will always be a minority in competitive and advanced players, if we can boost that competitive factor up we can get more players because a competitive game is fun! Where's the fun in playing a game where your opponents are weak and you crush them all the time, every day of the week? There's no fun in that at all. Beside this idea, Abf's (Dave) idea of a training session every weekend (this happened last year or maybe a few months ago) failed dramatically from week 1. If this isn't implemented the old guard and the new generation need to sit down together and come up with a plan that would benefit all of us and still increase skill/ability of newcomers. Many high rankers love this game so much, but it gets boring after a while of crushing the same weak players over and over again.

If we can implement this, we have our new generation of players who can choose and mix with the default competitive players, and you have the generation after that who mix with the one before and the competition to get better increases there too.

I don't support this. I like the idea of a colorful lobby with many different scenarios, maps, ...

The only thing that should change is the behaviour of the high ranks. When i joined afterwind the higher ranked players allied newcomers and talked with them in their world games. That motivates.
I mean if I am a new player here and every game i start I get rushed and killed immediately. First of all i can't develop my skills and second i lose my motivation and leave atWar.

So in my opinion a rank based ally system fixes this issue.

We need to keep the player motivated!!

Általa írva Safari, 23.09.2013 at 08:17

I don't support this. I like the idea of a colorful lobby with many different scenarios, maps, ...

The only thing that should change is the behaviour of the high ranks. When i joined afterwind the higher ranked players allied newcomers and talked with them in their world games. That motivates.
I mean if I am a new player here and every game i start I get rushed and killed immediately. First of all i can't develop my skills and second i lose my motivation and leave atWar.

So in my opinion a rank based ally system fixes this issue.

We need to keep the player motivated!!

rank based ally system seems like a viable idea, but how would that work?

Általa írva Safari, 23.09.2013 at 08:17

I don't support this. I like the idea of a colorful lobby with many different scenarios, maps, ...

The only thing that should change is the behaviour of the high ranks. When i joined afterwind the higher ranked players allied newcomers and talked with them in their world games. That motivates.
I mean if I am a new player here and every game i start I get rushed and killed immediately. First of all i can't develop my skills and second i lose my motivation and leave atWar.

So in my opinion a rank based ally system fixes this issue.

We need to keep the player motivated!!

This could work too, in fact I'd almost support anything that encourages boosting the competitive factor in this game. Can you elaborate about this system?

As a fairly new player I got to say the game has some very frustrating issues.
First of all, there's no penalty to people who disconnect, at least no important penalty, so every time they're losing all they do is disconnect and that's that, meanwhile the person who was winning won't have the satisfaction and the extra SP from finishing the opponent off, this is in my opinion the worst thing happening in the game because it removes the fun off 1v1'ing someone and outsmarting him/outplaying him, though I think it's okay to surrender when you're sure it's just going to be a very frustrating long battle where you'll just slowly lose everything due to having a lower budget/effective manpower.

Second, high ranks who just absolutely destroy lower levels as soon as they can. I don't find it fun to smash someone who is obviously worse at the game, and honestly whenever I see a high-rank pick a country right next to a low rank newbie I get the urge of just doing everything in my reach to stop him.

Általa írva GendoIkari, 23.09.2013 at 12:35

As a fairly new player I got to say the game has some very frustrating issues.
First of all, there's no penalty to people who disconnect, at least no important penalty, so every time they're losing all they do is disconnect and that's that, meanwhile the person who was winning won't have the satisfaction and the extra SP from finishing the opponent off, this is in my opinion the worst thing happening in the game because it removes the fun off 1v1'ing someone and outsmarting him/outplaying him, though I think it's okay to surrender when you're sure it's just going to be a very frustrating long battle where you'll just slowly lose everything due to having a lower budget/effective manpower.

Second, high ranks who just absolutely destroy lower levels as soon as they can. I don't find it fun to smash someone who is obviously worse at the game, and honestly whenever I see a high-rank pick a country right next to a low rank newbie I get the urge of just doing everything in my reach to stop him.

first of all: disconnecting is worse for the person who dc'ed, he loses a turn and possibly the game. you could have another 1v1 and win without someone DC, but he can't take back the loss.

2nd of all: they have to if they want to get more into the game and closer to other opponents, but its a noble cause trying to save him

What about this: Setting a some form of requirement to join a scenario game. Like 'play at least 100 games to join this game' or have a permanent minimum rank to join scenarios that you cannot change.

Why does everyone care about how skilled the new atwar players are? Just crush them and move on, they will eventually learn. I don't really care what other people do as long as they aren't leavers or wfers. Also what annoys me about these "skilled" players is that all they do is play a certain map EU+ over and over and over. So yeah they are skilled in that map. When people ask to duel me I ask to duel on some map neither of us have played (they rarely accept). Skill is about adaptability, and I like to think like in war leaders are always confronted by entirely new situations witch they must adapt to and win. EU+ players have every mvoe mapped out ahead of time, they know all the countries and incomes, its not skill, its memorization.

What Aetius said is true, even though being ''skilled'' is what you would usually be labelled as if you're good in the default map just playing over and over.

^

Általa írva Guest, 27.09.2013 at 12:00

After playing over 400 EU+ games they are pretty boring now :/ I don't understand how the "competitive/memorization/planning" players can keep up playing only 1vs1/3vs3 EU+.. same country pick. They're not playing a game anymore, they are just a machine getting sp and cw points.

I get bored of them as well, their main arguement is that EU requires the most skills to be good at... We need good alt world maps. Like actual continents and lands being completely different, as well as generally balanced in terms of opportunity. I would make some but I don't have premium.

Without a set standard map(or maps), competition at the highest level is meaningless. You'll notice some countries are far better than others, even over-powered comparatively because of the very game mechanics of atWar. Without knowledge one side automatically wins off of luck. Switching randomly between maps just turns these games into normal games, not professional.

There is a certain feel to high level play that rarely appears in normal games. I've played plenty world games, scenarios, and custom maps, and it just feels like I actually play for the first 8 turns then it devolves into me rolling over people till I meet the other high level in the game and we fight for a few turns then they leave. I don't get to fully destroy his empire and the game becomes empty. I should just use my macro clients from playing Runescape and make it drag my units away from my capital for all those turns after turn 6~ till about turn 25~ where I can come back to the computer and actually play. I stopped farming SP killing noobs and high ranks in world games/scenarios after I purchased all the upgrades I needed for 3vs3's.

3 vs 3's on EU+ where I can actually play against similarly skilled players? I don't need to drag 200 units for 10 turns just for 3 turns of action? That is the type of gameplay that I find interesting. Also fast paced and re-playable.

Hmm, yeah or maybe you could set up scenario sides? just sayin...