Poxnora isn't very newbie-friendly. At all. Leaving aside the questions of f2p, there is the problem that newbies with almost starting decks can (and will) stumble onto experienced 99-level players with full-exo+leg bgs, get steamrolled and lose all will to play and pay. (source: myself) Now here is what I propose to do: all decks are to be separated into certain ranks based on the number of occurences of certain rarities in it. For example, rank 1 would be free c/uc, up to 3 rares, rank 2 is free c/uc/rare + up to 2 exos, rank 3 is up to 4 exos and up to 2 legs and rank 4 is free everything (again, just an example, numbers pulled out of my ass). When creating a deck, its rank is automatically calculated and when creating a game the creator can tick a box saying that only people with deck rank not above his may join. This should niftily alleviate the issue, since newbies getting steamrolled won't think 'meh, his deck is full of exos, he must have paid 9001 dollars and sunk months into this grindfest, I should better look for a less p2w game' and more 'huh, he destroyed me despite having runes similar in value and rarity to mine and which I can go out and get right now for minimal investment, I should optimize my deck and try harder next time'. Experienced people, on the other hand, probably won't create decks lacking their hard-won limlegharbangels just to play with some newbies (unless they genuinely want to help and not to steamroll them, which is a good thing). Thoughts on this?
The only issues I see here are execution and playerbase, that being said, I like the premise. Maybe tabs ingame to decide where you're lobbying for a game, instead of several ranks? I don't know, whatever's easiest for players. Also if there's no one who wants to play a certain style, say, rank 2, there's going to be 5 people playing against each other constantly. I do think that this would be a good direction to push for as we get more players.
I doubt people will not want to play a certain rank. There will always be a certain percentage of people who already have sufficiently rare cards not to want to play in the rank below, but not enough to play the rank above. Thus, they'll play in the given rank. As to the tabs - I dislike that, since not only will that take up too much space without separate lobbies giving any benefit, but also people who are looking for a game in two ranks at once (so if their deck qualifies for rank 2, they are looking for a game that is either rank 2 or 3) will have to continously switch between tabs.
I strongly dislike the idea of players being told what they can run in a deck, I think it will actually turn away more players than it'd attract. I think the real issue here is that the player base isn't yet large enough so new players get matched against players like TinyDragon and DevilsRath. I'm really hoping once the owls manage to fix the current issues, get a realase together and start advertising that we will start attracting new players again. Once we have more players this issue naturally disapears as players will be able to play more people of the same skill level. Another thing that might help this as well, which I believe is being currently worked on is the competitive starter decks, once they are actually competitive new players will be able to pick them up and get a feel for the meta with them, without being pounded into the ground because they don't know whats good and whats not. Stick with it, join a helpful guild that are willing to devlop your game and trust that things are going to improve in the near future because things they are working on currently will massively improve your current situation.
Actually, in my proposal they aren't being told what they can run - they are simply prevented from playing with players that fulfill both of the following criteria: 1) they have obviously weaker decks and 2) they explicitly don't want to play with people the matchups with whom wimply won't be fair. It is obviously subjective, but I disagree that premade decks of any kind are the answer (unless the players can put their own runes in). People simply won't feel the connection with this random deck that got thrown at them, not to mention they won't get CPs for the runes they actually own. The possible solution would be allowing the players to put their own runes in while disallowing using the runes that came in the deck in any other BG (so at first they'll have 29 'public' runes to 1 'personal', then the ratio will gradually drop and finally they'll be able to make their own deck without any public runes).
Sorry I misunderstood then, I do understand where you are coming from, but for instance, DevilsRath makes a deck that just happens to be extremely strong, but it contains 0 exotics 0 legandaries, if he is then only queing against other players running no exotics this completely ruins the idea in the first place. It just so happens his last deck contained 0 exotics, thats a definate flaw in the idea. Somehow splitting up the ranks is also a very difficult thing to do because there are not enough active players right now, it takes long enough already to get a game, if you could only get rare league vs rare league or exotic vs exotic, it would make getting a game even more frustrating... How would you go about getting around those obstacles?
I personally feel that pre made decks are a perfectly viable answer. Let's say we were to give them 500 (or 300, 200, however many) runes and say "go ahead! Build your deck and go play against some other people!" - the whole difficulty of building a deck would be problematic just due to the fact that deck building is perhaps one of the most complex parts of this game. Perhaps complex isn't the best term - what I mean by complex is that this is where a lot of thought can be put in and made. Yes positioning, moving, attacking, one-rounding, L-defenses, and the burden of knowledge required to know all of the abilities is one thing, but deck building requires knowledge of all of that with the addition of planning how they can all interact and then to work towards optimizing them. Having a place where there are only pre-built decks allows players to sharpen the skills of positioning, moving, attacking, one-rounding, L-defenses, and restricts the burden of knowledge onto them for a short while as well as providing a relatively equal and level playing field. For better or for worse, these decks are level three to start off and you are unable to purchase these public decks in the marketplace, and the whole CP subject is something entirely on its own, but I fail to see how they would not "feel the connection" with a deck. They have decks to play around with, they can experiment with various options and can get a glimpse for what each faction has to offer. They can then "feel a connection" with a deck with a playstyle/runeset/art that they like given that they have the options to safely experiment and then if they feel compelled to, can explore other runes that that faction offers. Furthermore, It is weird to me though that there is the argument that new players can feel as though that their deck composition is what caused them to lose, yet at the same time, it is argued that regulating the decks in the beginning/short term is not a viable option towards countering that. I have not been as fully invested as much as I would like to be at the moment, but I do hope that the Training Grounds would be exactly what the name implies, a place where players new and old can come together and work on their own mechanics. Will the new players be beaten initially by the older players? Of course, but then they are allowed to change decks easily and try the reverse. New players will lose not because they don't have access to the runes, but because their skill level isn't up to par yet, and that skill level is something that they are easily and cheaply (freely) able to increase on their own. The issue, overall, however, appears to be the new player perception of rarity=power it seems and I'm not really sure how to alleviate that, but I feel that with the proposition in the original post, that would just go to further the idea that rarity=power, rather then deter it.
