Why people keep leaving CC
Posted: Fri May 29, 2015 3:55 am
It's been a major problem ever since I've started playing CC. People come, get trained up by the experts, and then just disappear 2-3 months later. Dreadnought almost disbanded CCI because of it. I think I might understand why, as I have now left CC for an extended period twice (today was my first time playing in about a month and a half). Prior to my last lapse in activity, I played probably about 10 games a week for about 2 months, but then it just got stale for me. Here's why:
1. Chores / too many things being manual
2. Tons of items and upgrades and complexity, but the same things are used over and over
3. Clumsy controls
Now I will elaborate and offer suggestions, starting with #1 and #3 since they are connected in some ways.
Many new players and semi-experienced but not expert players like me often find themselves piloting ss and doing chores. Both of which have clumsy controls and can be tedious / boring. That's a big turnoff. It's something that new players can put up with for awhile, but just get tired of it eventually. I'll identify each boring chore / clumsy control and offer suggestions:
First off: a task that many new players get assigned to: spamming repair stations. I find this unnecessarily tedious. I don't think it should be removed from the game but it needs some work. The most important thing it is lacking is a hotkey. The tooltip says that 'w' is the hotkey but it doesn't work? Anyway, I find it really annoying to have to click a little tiny inventory slot to use a repair station. It's easy to misclick. Plus shift clicking doesn't seem to be supported. AND, your marine stops moving when you deploy one. I think it would be much better if there was and easy, intuitive way to shift click several locations in the bc and have the marine automatically deploy a repair station at each clicked location, if possible. For example, the hotkey to deploy a repair station could be 'w'; so I could just press 'w' and shift click 6 locations and the marine would walk to each location and deploy a repair station. That would free me up to look outside for a few seconds and see what's going on (a big plus for noobs who could then learn about battles)
Next: getting free stuff from construction console. I find this a bit tedious too because of how long the cooldown is between purchasing items. It's only like 1 second or so, but when you need to buy like 20 flares that's a long time to just sit there and wait. If it's possible with the galaxy editor, make the cooldown for free items much less than 1 second. Another problem with this is that some of the items look the same so distinguishing between them is a problem. Ignore this if you've fixed this already, but if I remember right ss shields and flares had the same model. Some others might too.
Next: ss hotkeys. Small ships are lacking of some hotkeys and some hotkeys vary from ship to ship. Some examples of ss lacking hotkeys are miners and chompers lacking a flare hotkey. (but btw nice job adding a missile hotkey for wraiths) Also emergency hull repair lacks a hotkey. Here's what I propose:
Each inventory slot has a hotkey. If possible, numbers would be good (press '1' to use first slot, '2' to use second, etc) but I understand how this might not be possible because of control groups. (This is what I would suggest for your standalone though) If this isn't possible in SC, then at least make a hotkey for each slot with letters. A couple of notes: obviously the chomper has way too many inventory slots to have a hotkey for each one, so that ship would be an exception. I don't see need for inventory hotkeys in chompers anyway because by my understanding it's meant to be a vulnerable ship; it really shouldn't even be able to use flares and such. And also note that I don't think this should replace current hotkeys for flares and such, just be an addition to them. So to launch a flare, for example, you could either press 't', left click the inventory slot, or press the key for the inventory slot. This would also be useful for mineral venting on ships that dont have a mineral vent hotkey (just hit the keys for the slots with minerals in it), for emergency hull repair (just hit whatever key that corresponds to the slot containing an emergency hull repair), and for wraith missiles (you could pick which missile to launch if you are carrying multiple types). And if you attempt to use an item that has no active usage, it could just display an error in the bottom left of the screen.
Lastly for ss hotkeys: not all ships have the same docking key. Please pick either 'c' or 'd' and make all ships use the same one.
Next: loading / unloading items into / from ss. You've improved this very much over the past few months, so big thumbs up for that. But it still lacks one little thing. There is a button to withdraw ship items onto the ground, but not one for withdrawing the unit inventory onto the ground. There is enough space to add such a button too. You could put it right above the deposit (down arrow) button. Also, you can left click on an item and it will switch between unit inventory and ship inventory. I think it would be nice if you could right click an item to place it on the ground. Not sure if that event is supported in the editor (editor is a bit lacking in mouse events) but keep it in mind for the standalone.
And lastly for #1 and #3: camera controls in bc consoles. Weapons and Science have a button to free the camera, but none of the others do. Personally, I don't even understand the reasoning for locking the camera in the first place. I mean, you can still scroll anywhere on the map, it's just painstakingly sluggish and as soon as you move the mouse away from the edge of the screen it zooms back the bc. I hated this when I was new, and nearly every new player I've introduced to CC negatively comments on it. But, if there is logic behind it I will ask that a button to free the camera be added on other consoles. I don't think it's necessary on Construction and Hangar consoles, and Upgrades doesn't have room for it on some menus, but at least add it to Navigations and Power. And add it to the marine command card if possible.
So now for some elaborations on #2: Tons of items and upgrades and complexity, but the same things are used over and over.
What I mean by this is that there is an overwhelming amount of items, ships, upgrades, bc weapons, etc, but generally the same ones are used every time. So noobs have to take in all these numbers and names, and then once they do, they find out that the strategy of using these things is quite bland. For this game to become popular, it does NOT NEED MORE STUFF, just more usage for each item. Think of chess; there are only a handful of piece types, each one having simple rules. But the strategy behind using them is extraordinarily abundant. So it's easy for new players to pick up the simple rules but has a very high skill ceiling. CC is becoming the opposite. There are way too many items and such and most of them just have one usage. To me that's boring. So now I will offer some suggestions.
First off: BC weapons. Despite having multiple options, lasers are used almost every single time. The only variation is number of bursts and maybe skipping broadsides. I talked with Slapshot today, and he said you made kinetics somewhat viable, especially in combination with a missile (can't remember which one). That's GREAT. Keep up changes like that. I think lasers should be a mainstream, and should be used well over 50% of the time, but please make kinetics and missiles more viable and maybe make broadsides/penta not an absolute necessity for late game.
Secondly: new ss items. I see you added a bunch of new ss items, which I guess is fine but what I really wish you would do is add strategy behind the ones that already exist. What I mean is there should be a few items with multiple purposes / usages rather than many items with few usages. When I first played CC, I played the tutorial. Near the end of that game, I played around with the ss a bit and realized how good this game really is. For wraiths, side boosting can be used to dodge but also to move faster or can be used in combination with a flare to make a little protective wall, at a cost of energy. Well done. Also emp slows enemies down but also does a little damage. Plus, unlike lasers, can be fired in any direction. Also well done. And miner's turbo boost can be used to get the hell out of a hairy situation, of course, but can also be used push other ships, like chompers, to safety. And later I found out it can be used with a flare to create a very long and effective flare line. Also well done. So I would like to see more stuff like this throughout the game.
It appears that maybe the early things added to CC where well thought out and strategic, but most recent ones not as much. I like trying to make decisions that best fit the situation. For example: Your bc needs to charge up some energy and you are near many asteroids. You could upgrade the core to solve the energy problem and buy miners for the asteroids, or you could save money and tackle both by powerdocking with chompers. Then let's say a chomper gets shot so now you still have energy problems, and, you cannot have someone sitting on power console so a sudden attack may cause damage before someone can react. You could then upgrade core to increase the energy generation and give you more shields to buy time for a sudden attack.
Anyway, sorry to make you read so much; I hope it helps. And if it sounds like I'm whining about everything, I'm not. I just want to keep this game from dying and as a map developer myself I know these kind of lengthy, whiny suggestions help.
1. Chores / too many things being manual
2. Tons of items and upgrades and complexity, but the same things are used over and over
3. Clumsy controls
Now I will elaborate and offer suggestions, starting with #1 and #3 since they are connected in some ways.
Many new players and semi-experienced but not expert players like me often find themselves piloting ss and doing chores. Both of which have clumsy controls and can be tedious / boring. That's a big turnoff. It's something that new players can put up with for awhile, but just get tired of it eventually. I'll identify each boring chore / clumsy control and offer suggestions:
First off: a task that many new players get assigned to: spamming repair stations. I find this unnecessarily tedious. I don't think it should be removed from the game but it needs some work. The most important thing it is lacking is a hotkey. The tooltip says that 'w' is the hotkey but it doesn't work? Anyway, I find it really annoying to have to click a little tiny inventory slot to use a repair station. It's easy to misclick. Plus shift clicking doesn't seem to be supported. AND, your marine stops moving when you deploy one. I think it would be much better if there was and easy, intuitive way to shift click several locations in the bc and have the marine automatically deploy a repair station at each clicked location, if possible. For example, the hotkey to deploy a repair station could be 'w'; so I could just press 'w' and shift click 6 locations and the marine would walk to each location and deploy a repair station. That would free me up to look outside for a few seconds and see what's going on (a big plus for noobs who could then learn about battles)
Next: getting free stuff from construction console. I find this a bit tedious too because of how long the cooldown is between purchasing items. It's only like 1 second or so, but when you need to buy like 20 flares that's a long time to just sit there and wait. If it's possible with the galaxy editor, make the cooldown for free items much less than 1 second. Another problem with this is that some of the items look the same so distinguishing between them is a problem. Ignore this if you've fixed this already, but if I remember right ss shields and flares had the same model. Some others might too.
Next: ss hotkeys. Small ships are lacking of some hotkeys and some hotkeys vary from ship to ship. Some examples of ss lacking hotkeys are miners and chompers lacking a flare hotkey. (but btw nice job adding a missile hotkey for wraiths) Also emergency hull repair lacks a hotkey. Here's what I propose:
Each inventory slot has a hotkey. If possible, numbers would be good (press '1' to use first slot, '2' to use second, etc) but I understand how this might not be possible because of control groups. (This is what I would suggest for your standalone though) If this isn't possible in SC, then at least make a hotkey for each slot with letters. A couple of notes: obviously the chomper has way too many inventory slots to have a hotkey for each one, so that ship would be an exception. I don't see need for inventory hotkeys in chompers anyway because by my understanding it's meant to be a vulnerable ship; it really shouldn't even be able to use flares and such. And also note that I don't think this should replace current hotkeys for flares and such, just be an addition to them. So to launch a flare, for example, you could either press 't', left click the inventory slot, or press the key for the inventory slot. This would also be useful for mineral venting on ships that dont have a mineral vent hotkey (just hit the keys for the slots with minerals in it), for emergency hull repair (just hit whatever key that corresponds to the slot containing an emergency hull repair), and for wraith missiles (you could pick which missile to launch if you are carrying multiple types). And if you attempt to use an item that has no active usage, it could just display an error in the bottom left of the screen.
Lastly for ss hotkeys: not all ships have the same docking key. Please pick either 'c' or 'd' and make all ships use the same one.
Next: loading / unloading items into / from ss. You've improved this very much over the past few months, so big thumbs up for that. But it still lacks one little thing. There is a button to withdraw ship items onto the ground, but not one for withdrawing the unit inventory onto the ground. There is enough space to add such a button too. You could put it right above the deposit (down arrow) button. Also, you can left click on an item and it will switch between unit inventory and ship inventory. I think it would be nice if you could right click an item to place it on the ground. Not sure if that event is supported in the editor (editor is a bit lacking in mouse events) but keep it in mind for the standalone.
And lastly for #1 and #3: camera controls in bc consoles. Weapons and Science have a button to free the camera, but none of the others do. Personally, I don't even understand the reasoning for locking the camera in the first place. I mean, you can still scroll anywhere on the map, it's just painstakingly sluggish and as soon as you move the mouse away from the edge of the screen it zooms back the bc. I hated this when I was new, and nearly every new player I've introduced to CC negatively comments on it. But, if there is logic behind it I will ask that a button to free the camera be added on other consoles. I don't think it's necessary on Construction and Hangar consoles, and Upgrades doesn't have room for it on some menus, but at least add it to Navigations and Power. And add it to the marine command card if possible.
So now for some elaborations on #2: Tons of items and upgrades and complexity, but the same things are used over and over.
What I mean by this is that there is an overwhelming amount of items, ships, upgrades, bc weapons, etc, but generally the same ones are used every time. So noobs have to take in all these numbers and names, and then once they do, they find out that the strategy of using these things is quite bland. For this game to become popular, it does NOT NEED MORE STUFF, just more usage for each item. Think of chess; there are only a handful of piece types, each one having simple rules. But the strategy behind using them is extraordinarily abundant. So it's easy for new players to pick up the simple rules but has a very high skill ceiling. CC is becoming the opposite. There are way too many items and such and most of them just have one usage. To me that's boring. So now I will offer some suggestions.
First off: BC weapons. Despite having multiple options, lasers are used almost every single time. The only variation is number of bursts and maybe skipping broadsides. I talked with Slapshot today, and he said you made kinetics somewhat viable, especially in combination with a missile (can't remember which one). That's GREAT. Keep up changes like that. I think lasers should be a mainstream, and should be used well over 50% of the time, but please make kinetics and missiles more viable and maybe make broadsides/penta not an absolute necessity for late game.
Secondly: new ss items. I see you added a bunch of new ss items, which I guess is fine but what I really wish you would do is add strategy behind the ones that already exist. What I mean is there should be a few items with multiple purposes / usages rather than many items with few usages. When I first played CC, I played the tutorial. Near the end of that game, I played around with the ss a bit and realized how good this game really is. For wraiths, side boosting can be used to dodge but also to move faster or can be used in combination with a flare to make a little protective wall, at a cost of energy. Well done. Also emp slows enemies down but also does a little damage. Plus, unlike lasers, can be fired in any direction. Also well done. And miner's turbo boost can be used to get the hell out of a hairy situation, of course, but can also be used push other ships, like chompers, to safety. And later I found out it can be used with a flare to create a very long and effective flare line. Also well done. So I would like to see more stuff like this throughout the game.
It appears that maybe the early things added to CC where well thought out and strategic, but most recent ones not as much. I like trying to make decisions that best fit the situation. For example: Your bc needs to charge up some energy and you are near many asteroids. You could upgrade the core to solve the energy problem and buy miners for the asteroids, or you could save money and tackle both by powerdocking with chompers. Then let's say a chomper gets shot so now you still have energy problems, and, you cannot have someone sitting on power console so a sudden attack may cause damage before someone can react. You could then upgrade core to increase the energy generation and give you more shields to buy time for a sudden attack.
Anyway, sorry to make you read so much; I hope it helps. And if it sounds like I'm whining about everything, I'm not. I just want to keep this game from dying and as a map developer myself I know these kind of lengthy, whiny suggestions help.
Honestly, earlier things where my ideas that I added. Recent ones are mostly others ideas. With a risk of accidentally taking credit for other people's ideas, I'd say side boosts, emp, decoy flares, turbo jump and chompers were all my ideas.