October 2020 Priority Survey Results

arcade needs better payout balancing especially for the ones oriented to skills.
more games are better, fingers crossed for that coin pusher. :slight_smile:

6 Likes

oh no… I was waiting for Dueling Arena so much, but it’s lowest priority for most :frowning:

Weird, arcade seems to be the place I get best FPS on.

2 Likes

Bummed more people aren’t excited for SDNL and Dueling. I feel like at least one of those is going to be a huge hit. I’m sure Horror Hill will be cool but its the most up-in-the-air from my POV, I just don’t know what to expect so much. The devs have done some satisfying FPS gameplay with Virus and Lasertag, I want some raw PvP damnit! I wannah challenge people to 1v1’s!

Atleast there is general interest in more condo content.

7 Likes

Feel the same way here

1 Like

Solar remake when?

solar is ok as it is imo

hell yeah double xp , double tickets, and double units sounds good to me

I would love to see there being more to do if you don’t have people to play with. Most of the games I cant play in Australia unless I disconnect from the official server and just go into match making but if I do that I end up in games where I have a high ping. I have no issue with having some games that require multiple people to play them but there needs to be more content for those who don’t play with other people or cant.

3 Likes

I don’t know what to make of the results, but I’m glad Casino is getting a spotlight again.

So many fantastic multiplayer games that can be brought to it. Hope we can one major one soon enough since Arcade already received some major support recently.

Can’t wait to play Black Jack, Roulette and other multiplayer gambling games at Tower Casino!

2 Likes

rrmm I meant remaster, cuz the Solar look kinda feels outdated. It’s just my subjective opinion.

I think it looks fine.

1 Like

If dueling got added, It would allow the fps players to grind the dueling gamemode for leaderboards, and then they could play other gamemodes with others the rest of the time. Lasertag was so good when it got updated with everyone playing it, it was so cool that they integrated a fun pvp fps gamemode into the game. The only problem was that there was no incentive to play it again. Other online games don’t always have progression, yet give people a reason to play the game again and improve, yet with laser tag I noticed as soon as players started to lose too much or played more than a few matches, many left and the gamemode rarely gets played again.
With duels they have another chance to integrate something that keeps fps players playing. This could range from a basic cosmetic system with a currency that can only be obtained from and spent at duels, to an inclusion of their arcade weekly leaderboards system. Other possible options to keep fps players or even players in general playing the gamemode more, could also include different gamemodes that vary slightly such as specific weapons only, or a random weapons mode.
Either way, laser tag has always been great because of the variety in the places you can go in the arena, as well as the general movement of the game, rewarding good decision making, whilst also having a fun element to it for those who are less serious about playing the mode, and I think this gameplay could be transferred to duels and have a really good result.

2 Likes

Not much variety in the arena, especially when people camp the recharge stations. I, personally, am not a huge fan of the current layout because if you don’t bug out immediately with no mistakes, you’re pretty prone to being spawn-camped. That said, it is a function of the game and, so, perfectly acceptable within the gameplay–I just don’t like it so I don’t play it once teams start getting to that point. (And, btw, when it devolves into spawn camping is the only “good” decision-making–as all of the games eventually do–you’re rewarding laziness, not mastery or logic. Many people who stop playing for losing too much are the ones who can get shot in the back while running from the recharge station while being followed from the recharge station, or who miss the first shot while more slowly running backwards as they are being pursued from the recharge station.) Making a dueling system that rewards mastery with a shorter learning curve than LC, a lower FPs threshold than you need in arcade (cough cough Birde Seede and any game you throw things), and the variability of Virus will make it have more replay value because it will be accessible without stagnation.

I think, though, because almost everything in TU has become a variety of different grinds without much variation, people are asking for both novelty and nuance. Once you’ve ground out the milestones, you go do what you’re good at and can find people grinding their way up to the milestones. Many of the milestones depend on you hoping someone else is playing (Laser Tag, LC, Virus, a few in ZM, some Accelerate, some Condo, some Trivia, some Typing Derby, some Theater, some Casino, some Game Pad games, etc.); a few of them depend on you getting away from other players (FPS drops in arcade, reasonable advancement in ZM for most class-specific kills, plaza FPS drops that affect fishing, hosting Minigolf to prevent desync so you can get those HIOSs, hosting Ball Race to prevent the desync so you can finish a map without dying, hosting Minigolf or Ballrace so you don’t get vote kicked for trying to find the golden melons and getting the achievements, etc.); and some don’t matter who else is playing (many Condo achievements, most Game Pad, most Accelerate, most ZM [depending on how fast you want to move], most Ball Race, Minigolf, etc.) You need only look at the vote kick discussion for why mutations will have only a partially curative effect on vote kicking without addressing the underlying issue of the fall-off in gameplay after milestones are achieved or why some milestones are abandoned.

The milestones are not geared towards mastery, and mastery of many of the game modes is being fairly acquainted with the coding nuances as opposed to actual gameplay. Milestone achievement is dependent on the person either being a completionist (which is not possible at this time) or wanting the specific award of the milestone (guns from ZM or Virus, morphs from ZM or LC, in-condo placeables from ZM, etc.). It is 100% possible to have 14m xp in Virus and be 2nd for number of infections solely due to the volume you play and not because you’re not trash at the game. It is completely possible to be someone who does nothing but roar in LC and have all the achievements and milestones.

But let’s be clear what we’re talking about when we’re talking about replay value. There are certain games I will only play with the group I normally hang out with because that’s what the group wants to do and they don’t completely hate that I occasionally have to screw around in those game modes to find enjoyment in them (Fool Powa and Ridin’ tha Dragon). There are games I do not play at all unless I absolute have to, and really only because I’m slowly working my way through the achievements before I completely give up the game mode. There are a few games I play way too d* much because I enjoy the format and subject matter PLUS you can create in-game variants that change the game play within the current program bounds (Eternal Kitsune TNT protocol, Flip Sign, Dodge Zomb). The fun I derive from them comes more from the ability to work with the group. Other people find replay value in trying to master the game, which is partially where the vote kick frustration comes man–they don’t think they can get better without the better players being excluded from the game. Other people find replay value in mindless spamming (Casino, Arcade). Other people find replay value in trolling–hoe much they can get into a game and just be a complete jerk.

That said, the overall structure of TU isn’t bad, it’sjust the most functional way to do things. Overall leaderboards are unobtainable for anyone who hasn’t started in the last year (particularly since some are broken) and will continue to be a point of contention no matter what (worse if they get wiped again–I heard something got reset in the past and things went sour). Almost all of them (particularly outside of Arcade) are a measure of volume and not necessarily ability. They’re not really an incentive to anyone who isn’t going to quit their job to do this, in other words. Weekly leaderboards like in Arcade are misleading because they’re not the actual state of who is on top. (The first 10 players after midnight Saturday are always the top.) Even if they were to institute a tournament, people would complain because it would come down to dedication enough of the game mode to know the programming nuances and a good connection the time of the match. (The workshop models load under the morphs of the LC character–pro tip.) [I’d still like to see it, though.]

The devs are working on optimizations that are going to help level the playing field. The devs are working their way through glitches that are reported but are not always able to replicate the issues so they don’t necessarily know to to fix them. The devs are trying to balance the character base that want this to be a different version of GMod and literally everyone else. The devs are trying to add new grinds to keep interest. The workshop itself is a compromise between the devs knowing their base wants more and knowing they can expand the items or work on the game. What I hope the devs got from the survey is that while we’re okay with grinding, it would be nice if it didn’t have to feel like a grind. Once the shine wears off the polish, it takes elbow grease to get it back on.

Double XP, tickets, etc. weekends is a really bad idea honestly, it’s already stupidly easy to earn more XP and units than you know what to do with. It’s for this reason I think tickets are perfectly balanced, because there’s actually a degree of difficulty in getting items and therefore you actually need to work to earn your rewards.

Or at least add an ability to reset your stats like many people have suggested over the years.

Nah I have to disagree I think Double Units and XP is great, Tickets I think is almost necessary really.

When it comes to things like XP to get milestone items and tickets to get arcade items (Especially the wowozela) it’s more about time and people don’t have a lot of time to play games when they have things to do, and people are often available on weekends so this makes the time they spend on their time off worth more ingame.

I mean part of this issue could be fixed by lowering the amount needed for certain arcade items or XP milestones, but I think it’s far late to do that really, and you could upgrade the multiplier for XP and increase ticket payouts, but I think having a weekend where it does that is better really. I see a similar situation in the game Sea of Thieves which I’ve been enjoying a bit more with it’s increased mini-events and accessibility.

I think double currency weekends encourage the players to play the game more often. I know a few people who don’t grind things because they already have such limited time to play the game and it’s incredibly out of reach to get them so they just give up really.

9 Likes

Don’t confuse grinding with difficulty. There is very little mastery in doot, doo-doot, doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doot but it is a grind. Emotionally difficult, maybe, but not actually difficult.

4 Likes

Also I wanted to add, just because something takes a long time to do doesn’t make it “difficult”. Not a very great comparison, but if you got 10 EXP for pressing a button and had to press it 100k times to get a cool milestone, it wouldn’t be hard to do (since it’s just pressing a button), but it would be extremely time consuming and would discourage people from wanting to sit down for several hours doing nothing but pressing a button for that item.

8 Likes

Exactly. Grinding has more emotional weight than mastery weight. Grinding does not equal difficulty by its own terms.