The "Extra Lives" problem for new players in CIU:

Early Access
21

My initial solution would be to try and make it so whenever you invest keys for something, you’d always get more better things in return.

This should make a positive feedback loop of: do missions, get better gear which you can use for harder missions, rinse and repeat a couple times, which ultimately leads to getting better ships, learning more mechanics like Shady Dealers, item rarity, and so on, then persues to get that, … leading to a way way better experience of this game for newbies, while at the same time, reward veterans with a higher key gain overall.

This may sound simple but the details on how to actually come up with such a thing isn’t that easy.

A solution I got so far (which isn’t fully complete, but has a huge potential):

  • A “bonus key” reward criteria which increases depending on how many consumables you’ve used while flying this mission like perishables, auto use items, …
  • The key reward should give you enough keys so you can use them to get it all back via the Store.
  • Failed/surrendered missions doesn’t give you any extra keys beyond the “bonus key” criteria.

This way, players that either surrendered or failed (due to aformentioned issues) won’t have the issue that’s been addressed, and can simply start again (with a nerfed score bonus due to unoriginality penalty, of course), while those who persisted on and managed to win such a game will get a large key gain, since the key gain then will be the keys awarded, plus the “bonus keys” used to buy back the stuff you’ve lost.

EDIT #1:
This also gives the players more incentive to use the “consumables” and have fun with it - as of right now, it’s pretty fun to use, but most people would probably not do it since it costs alot of, well, keys.
That’s why I never have any of that on me
(except from the Sattlites since those things are a 1-time investment, which I like alot)

Of course, doing this has one downside I could think of:
It means that all investment in Shop items ultimately leads to a good ending for the player,
but some may like having to think where to spend your keys, and to spend them wisely.

I wanted to cover this problem too, but I have to leave this open for now since I can’t think of a simple solution for this just yet.

2 Likes
22

tl dr.

if you have 0 keys then you get negative keys???

2 Likes
23

No…

24

Eh you can play recent mission to refarm the key

25

Um, no. What that means is dying can be devastating for new players who don’t have a built-up key bank since extra lives would be relatively costly for them. It can be worse if said new players are inexperienced and will die more often since they’ll have to invest more into lives rather than buying new equipment or skills.

5 Likes
26

It would be wise for begineers to play easier missions in either the galaxy or event missions like Easy and Medium Weapon Training and Daily missions. Some of weekly challenges waves. and space races.

27

I wish every beginner can think like a pro and know all about the game’s systems to figure out that this is a good method to start off with.
I mean, I only realized the Moron Railgun is supposed to be my “starter weapon” about 10-20 hours in.

And the game can’t tell you this information directly either, since that has a lot of long-term bad effects towards the player.
Telling you to do this, get that, do this to go here … is not viable at all, as when those tutorials end, the player will be left without a goal, not knowing what to do next, and simply abandon the game as they think they’ve done everything already, while there’s still a massive galaxy to explore, things to do, events to enter, …

28

It literally does. Have you read Moron Railgun’s description in the shop?

29

In Clash of Clans, the base building and strategic war game (whatever players consider it) that has been released almost 10 years ago, they have only very recently (end of June 2022) make this very major change: all armies are completely free to train to encourage players to try new strategies risk-free (it used to cost in-game resources that can be easily collected), only takes time to train (depending on your level, an army used for attacking may take 30 minutes to 1 hour to train, training time has always been the thing since 2012). See more here: Home Village Changes | Clash of Clans

We can do any of the following:

  • Give new players 500 keys to start (if I remember correctly, you start with very few keys awarded from exploration plus 50 keys for completing the tutorial). This should help new players buy some stuff, and while they lose lives they will likely get more experience that this no longer becomes a problem.

  • Going extreme like Clash of Clans, unlimited free extra lives, unlimited free special weapons, unlimited perishables. But in exchange for this, there should be a new tier requirement to unlock each and every mission item in the game (with some exceptions like Extra Lives, classic Missiles and Mines available at the beginning) to encourage progression to endgame tiers. The only items that are in the store would be galaxy exploration items, spacecrafts, spacecraft parts, satellites and weapons. And you are still restricted to the number of slots as usual. But this requires a lot of rework for all existing items.

2 Likes
30

@MaybeOrandzaIdk not being able to fly advanced missions will save you keys by letting you know that it will cost. When I fly a new mission I fly with no mounted equipment and see how much of a challenge it is. The tier level tells me which way to attack these annoying chickens and be successful and on budget. It also saves pilot frustration. I guess it is all up to the pilot. Be well all…

31

Ok that’s not very related to what I said and I already admitted that my info wasn’t correct.

32

This is what I mainly do now since the consumables are so dang expensive to refuel every time, even after 80+ hours of gameplay.

I kinda hate the “unoriginality penalty” whenever I do this though, since if I die, the mission is gone, and if I redo it right then and there (since I waste no keys on restocks as I don’t use any consumables),
I have to do everything again, and when I eventually succeed, that penalty stops me from getting the points I woulda had for trying my best.
(Sure, points are kinda worthless beyond tier 99, but still, it feels bad)

So if the pilot follows this method to play the game, it makes this game feels like Geometry Dash, but way harsher(and more frustrating if you get the win after a few fails), with music that’s not designed for multiple repeats, so most new people are leaving after 2-3 hours tops.

It’s fine if you’re not trying to get a huge fanbase for the game, but for an online game to stay afloat, having a small market is not ideal at all.
Having less people that actually likes the game = less people that actually want to pay for stuff, the price that IA could use to further develop the game + server prices, etc…

Plus, players (especially new ones) should be encouraged to try out all the new stuff in the shop and have some fun with them. What’s the point of having those items if you’re not supposed to use them?

If they want to do the more serious things we got competitive challenges like the Galactic Cup and the Daily/Weekly Missions, and even IronMan.

1 Like
33

The latter is my first solution, but that feels too much work for an indie dev to do in 1 update.
Not to mention working on such big updates means there’s a higher chance it could be a bit … broken in the first few patches. Which is pretty annoying in and of itself.

It’s kinda why the “bonus key” design ultimately replaced that idea.
It’s far simpler to understand, to code, and fixes alot of issues stated.

From a coding standpoint, you only need to find the items the player has used during any given mission, and calculates the keys technically used, and awards that to the player once the mission ends.

1 Like
34

Here a change I would do: Make daily stipend better. ~20 keys are nott worth it.

1 Like
35

I don’t agree, we should encourage players to actually play the game. 7300 keys a year is quite a lot.

1 Like
36

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