OK incoming wall of text but this issue is something that might have to be considered because it keeps reappearing in all sorts of threads. I started in 2007. Back then the training grounds was a place where you could only choose a pre-made locked FF BG with level 1 runes. It was filled with people who wanted to try Poxnora but not spend any money on it yet. Quite a few people played there. New players would ask in chat "how do I upgrade my runes?" and people would explain that you had to purchase runes in order to change the BG and upgrade your runes. There was no gold or anything if you didn't want to spend real money you got the lousy locked BGs in the TG and that was it. Now the new team at DoG is trying to bring this back with locked pre-made BGs that new players can use without spending any money. The idea is it will have a LoL style rotation of free to play BGs. And then players can earn gold in the TG to buy runes, avatars etc and help grow their collection. Hopefully coupled with real $ purchases so the devs can make money here. Which is an idea that I personally supported. Now there seems to be two sides of an argument forming here. There was a large backlash in the patch notes about lowering the rate at which players earn gold. And how this would affect F2P. Also: I think it might be time to look at a compromise between both sides. The most obvious issue at hand is the fun of being able to customize a BG the way you want it. In fact that is really the most fun part of this game for a lot of people. Like it or not today's generation has an "I want it now" attitude about things. Maybe it is a mistake to deny BG customization to new players. Also if someone wants to make a competitive BG of owned runes without spending a dime it is in fact possible but it will requires a LOT of time played (less than grinding out a 150k runes uder SOE but still a good amount of time) ... I can see how some people might see this as a false promise of F2P depending on what their expectations were going in. I've heard the idea of making the entire core set completely free, letting new players build whatever BGs they want out of the core set and then taking those BGs into a core set only battleground. This obviously has a couple of things that might cause problems, but would it be much more appealing to people because they can customize something right away? Or do you think that once the bugs get worked out and pox advertises itself the current TG with it's pre-made BGs will be enough to hook people who have never played pox before into becoming customers down the line?
In my personal experience, the Training Grounds is a great tool for players that are starting out into the game. The most fun part of this game is indeed making the battle group and it is also the most advanced as it requires knowledge about the game first in order to have it work. Like any other games that we have, when we first get started, we are usually introduced by a friend who gives us a part of their sets, we don't need to learn how to build our own builds yet, we first start with what is given to us. Once we learn how the game works and how to play the game and if we want to continue, can we then go looking for more and start building out own groups. When I have a bit more of a chance, I will probably be sitting in the Training Grounds offering as an incentive to new players that if they are able to beat me, they will be able to obtain some of the overstocked runes o the rune pool, as well as hosting some public deck tournaments where the rewards may be even higher where I can buy them pack and/or something else. The only issue at the moment I believe is that the Burning Tree deck no longer exists, thus they would need to buy something in order to be able to trade (which will be stalled due to the requirement to farm gold first to get a pack, though I believe that would be fairly easily just to get some initial trade fodder as well as offer a hook). Regardless, before the new players begin to really experiment with different builds and battle groups, I feel that having an environment where there is a fairly equal playing field is extremely positive, this allows players to try out different decks and different styles, and also avoids the overall idea that "I just lost due to them having a better deck", it becomes more about skill. Yes new players will lose due to their low skill initially, but if they feel that they lost because of something that they can personally improve (I lost because I played badly) and not something that is outside of their control (i.e. I have runes that you don't have, thus I win), that I feel can have motivation to improve.
An idea I had for that ... People get TG BG's, and they can modify them. They can remove runes from it, but not add those runes to other BG's, and replace them with their own. Say, they aquire Euan, so they take their pally starter, kick out dorf sarge and put Euan in. Doesn't devalue runes by giving them a real BG and does allow them to build their own BG's, and even gradually so. A lack of graduality is a big problem I see with F2P pox, tbh.
I can see the good and bad of that idea honestly Boozha. Are you still able to use your pre-made pally BG in TG after you put Euan in? Does that make it less fair to the guy who doesn't have Euan? Conversely will that guy say "where'd you get that Euan?" "I bought a box with gold/cash and got him" " Oh cool I'm gonna buy a box now so I might get one too"
So that was done somewhat with the SOE * runes, though I'm not entirely sure of how effective that will be. I feel that a better idea would be the ability to actually purchase the decks, similar to how you could purchase the old sample starter decks, which can get you to be started. We could even wrap it into a "new player package" where they would also get a few packs of additional core and/or extended packs as well if they wanted to try to experiment more, or have the package actually include some additional runes, or even have a full faction "starter pack" that includes the public decks and/or theme decks, and/or a set of core and/or extended set of runes of that faction. Overall, I am not against having new players have the ability to customize their own battle groups, but I feel that having a "safe", "contained" environment where what is more important is learning the mechanics of the game such as positioning, strategy, and limiting the number of abilities/interactions (which many people have cited to be "overwhelming" for a new player) that a player initially encounters is important.
I guess I should add something else, that while I do feel that is important to have something like the Training Grounds to start, there historically always has been the difficult transition from going from the semi-casual PoxNora Training Grounds player to the more competitive Ranked Game/Other type of player. At the moment, I do feel that there is a need to find some way to bridge that gap and I do feel it is significant, though I don't know of any way at the moment of how to do it.
Personally, I think the earlier bugged TG (the one where it showed some ranked matches or something) was better in one aspect: actually training new players in two methods: 1) Advertising TG to new players. I don't know about you, but if I were a new player and seeing 0 people in Training Grounds, I'd quit the game pretty quickly. 2) Allowing/implying new players to observe higher level games (ranked games) much more easily to improve their own play by simply being there. It's a small thing but seeing higher ranked people (more noticeable because of icons) in TG and observable in TG makes new players who mostly frequent either TG or campaigns more likely to actually observe. To replicate this, since we obviously don't want a bugged lobby again, I'd recommend the top 5 games or a random 5 ranked games to be redirected lobby/observe-wise to Training Grounds
The changed BG would not be a TG BG anymore, so you'd have to play in Battlegrounds with it. Or in another TG section.
Isn't that what Theme Decks are for? Play enough Public Decks to either buy box for own deck or enough gold for a Theme Deck. Edit Theme Deck because no one plays Theme Deck format -> new viable deck Making Public Decks editable wouldn't work since 1) too similar to above and 2) would have to be re-edited with less good stuff to make Theme Decks appealing as a buy choice still (or just make Public Deck runes untradable and unable to include in other decks beside the original Public Deck but that'd be waaaaaaaaay too much a pain / complicated to code in this client) Regarding Public Decks specifically though, allowing the option of changing the Public Deck upgrades would be nice
1º Core set available for everyone <- (possibly achieved via playing with initial decks?) 2º Limited runes custom games and tournaments (2 leg max, no leg, 2 exo max, no exo, etc) 3º Balance complexity and powercreep
Many good points in this thread, and I agree that this is a major issue that will have to be sorted out before targeting new players again. Gedden mentioned in chat that he was contemplating giving Core runes for playing with TG decks, I think that's a really good idea. But the main issue is that making the move from public deck to custom deck is super hard, and there is no gradual learning curve. Some thoughts on this: I like the idea of making public decks customisable. This could be done like this: Allow player to copy a public deck, which now makes it editable. The public runes are marked as locked though, so you can only remove them to put other runes in instead. And those customized decks would not be allowed in TG of course. Theme decks aren't very useful, because they are expensive (like $20 or a month of grinding, not useful for a beginner who still needs to be hooked). But having really cheap theme decks could be an alternative. The biggest issue IMO is that when players go to the Rune Manager, they are simply shown a blank slate ("My First Deck"). There needs to be some sort of guidance, so people don't feel completely lost with this. Players should be hand-held with regards to when would be a good time to start building a deck, and how to go about doing this. Hearthstone has two features which could be interesting to look at. The first is the concept of "basic cards", which are earned by unlocking levels with a certain faction. The advantage of these basic cards is that they provide you a foundation from which you can start customising your decks. I really think this would be a good idea for Pox Nora. I.e. a certain number of runes would be declared "basic" (heck, they could even be new runes created from scratch for this purpose, maybe using art or minor reskins from existing runes), they would be untradable and everyone would receive them gradually after earning a certain number of faction points. Another feature Hearthstone has is "recommend a card" when you are building a deck. When you are really lost and don't know where to start, some kind of hand holding like that would be really helpful. It's great that players can go to the forum for guidance, but players should never be forced to. It doesn't matter if the hand-holding doesn't turn players into battlemaster material, as long as they don't feel overwhelmed and can have fun just playing around.
The very first step remains to get people (make it look like there are people by putting spectate-able games in TG - see my earlier / longer post above) in Training Grounds. I don't know about you but I think it's very discouraging for a new player to see there are zero people in Training Grounds. It implies all sorts of things and none of them positive
True, but I think right now would be one of the worst times for new players to arrive to the game, so I wouldn't make that a priority. It's a problem that isn't going to exist if a push for new players is well coordinated (this time Steam needs to work out...).
I like training grounds, but also feel that an enormous resource that is essential to cultivating new players, easing them into the game, as well as attracting the large number of casual players needed to turn some into PvP maniacs like the rest of us, is single-player campaign mode. Single-player could have everything going for it with improvement, and is currently a forgotten and wasted resource (thanks SOE). Unlike Training Grounds, single-player can also introduce (1) new champions, plot-driven story line, new game art, AI improvements (vastly needed), a break from PvP for variety, short pausable games for on-the-go people (e.g. working folks), etc. And if DoG is listening, as SOE was not, a great opportunity to introduce dungeon or arena modes (Hearthstone has this) to vastly widen the scope of interest for this game among most players. The largest percentage of gamers by far are casual players. Pox is WAY to complex right now with so many runes for even Training Grounds (TG) to be "easy." Also, TG requires kind souls to help people. That doesn't always happen - why gamble on the careful newbie experience (NUX) ? Single-player could be scripted carefully to ramp up difficulty and guide new players in an exacting way toward mastery of core concepts of the game. By guiding players 100% of the time, I believe it could be superior to TG, at least in the beginning and until one is a moderately skilled player, where Training Grounds would then be preferable. Order of Instruction for New Players: Single-player campaigns (after much revamp and AI, scripted plot and story improvements) - suitable for the vast array of all gamers including casual Training Grounds (though open to those bold enough to enter) - suitable for some casual gamers and all moderately skilled players PvP (not viable for non-paying players due to rune ability locks) - death to all who come - only hardcore PvP'ers survive, but the challenge is there for all
Training grounds is perfect, but the starter decks are absolute trash and need to be completely rethought from scratch, using some of the best deck builders on pox.
Or do you think that once the bugs get worked out and pox advertises itself the current TG with it's pre-made BGs will be enough to hook people who have never played pox before into becoming customers down the line? THis yes
