BYOND? More like CASUAL in Off Topic

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ID:82067
 
Sep 16 2009, 12:36 pm
Keywords: woh
Oh wow, it is official.

I think about 90-95% of BYOND consists of casual scrubs, and/or underage kids.

I made a game, and it has so far had exactly 46 different people play it, about 40-42 of them have quit within 5 minutes.

Usually they quit after being killed once.
Chances are none of them read the help files that come with the game, and blindly charged into combat, and got slaughtered.
The help files specifically say, "Don't blindly charge into combat, if you do you will die. And dying is bad".
Hell, even the hub says STRATEGIC action game. Since when did stratergy involve blindly charging into an enemies base, and getting slaughtered in seconds?

The chat log in the game kind of looks like...

"Ranger killed SpartanDeath!
SpartanDeath has left the game.
Tower killed Nopok1!
Nopok1 has left the game.
Imp killed Benblu!
Benblu has left the game."

(There is no login message, but if there was it would say they logged in, got killed, logged out)

Maybe I should add a "Log training mode" to the game. Where the objective is to stand around, hitting logs all day?
Or maybe I should add a medal to the game "I am too casual to play real games, going back to play my AFK log training game now", which you get if you log in the game, get killed, the log out, without even reading any of the help files.

BYOND... I am dissapoint.

In other news I'll probably update the game later on today with items (and log training mode + i am a casual medal).
#1 Sep 16 2009, 12:41 pm
Oh good lord. yea ++
That's how half of the people are on my game. Plus about 20 people log in saying "Where are the training bags?". I'm heavily considering requiring an IQ Test in the character creation of my game.
#2 Sep 16 2009, 12:41 pm
No items, final destination.
#3 Sep 16 2009, 12:55 pm
"Since when did stratergy involve blindly charging into an enemies base, and getting slaughtered in seconds?" <-- Reminds me of Vegeta lmao. I was going to play your game but college has had me very busy, hopefully tonight I will get a chance at it.
#4 Sep 16 2009, 1:05 pm
It's pretty good, mikeh. I like it.
#5 Sep 16 2009, 1:15 pm
I haven't even played your game, but help files are always a turn off for me. You don't see help files in the top MMOs, you see tutorials.
#6 Sep 16 2009, 1:19 pm
If you play the game you'll see it would be pretty difficult to add a tutorial into the game.
#7 Sep 16 2009, 1:34 pm
Fugsnarf wrote:
I haven't even played your game, but help files are always a turn off for me. You don't see help files in the top MMOs, you see tutorials.

I think that a majority of the denizens on BYOND will opt to skip a tutorial, then die and ragequit.
#8 Sep 16 2009, 1:39 pm
This again?
#9 Sep 16 2009, 1:41 pm
Devourer Of Souls wrote:
This again?

My thoughts exactly. I'm starting to see a trend.

Maybe you don't catch my drift. But "Generiquest" comes to mind.
#10 Sep 16 2009, 1:43 pm
Fugsnarf wrote:
I haven't even played your game, but help files are always a turn off for me. You don't see help files in the top MMOs, you see tutorials.

I'm the complete opposite. Whenever I buy a new game I quickly rip the box open, take out the instruction booklet, and read it thoroughly. That way, I have a nice grasp of what is going on instead of trying to learn everything swiftly during an in-game tutorial.


The Magic Man, I really do not know what to say. Perchance your game just does not appeal to the majority of the BYOND players. Have you thought about advertising off of BYOND?
#11 Sep 16 2009, 1:55 pm
I made a game, and it has so far had >exactly 46 different people play it, >about 40-42 of them have quit within 5 >minutes.

Usually they quit after being killed
once.
Chances are none of them read the help >files that come with the game, and >blindly charged into combat, and got >slaughtered.

This is what almost 90% of players do on my games.
#12 Sep 16 2009, 2:10 pm
Usually you have to log into an anime game in order to be killed by the owner in five seconds. I'm happy to see genre breaking games such as yours on BYOND.

I would suggest making the game suck less.
#13 Sep 16 2009, 2:55 pm
You act shocked, but the BYOND player base has been this way for years and years. Nothing about this should surprise you.
#14 Sep 16 2009, 3:05 pm
So... Apparently, the problem for this issue is simple.

Make computers than can directly interface with a human brain, and then have the game adjust it's self based on what that human does/does not know about the game.

But seriously, other than making the help files for the game more obvious and apparent to new players. There is nothing I can do to account for what is effectively rubbish players.

Seriously, how many people here buy a new PC game, then jam every key on the keyboard until they figure out what keys do what?
Not me, I will usually look at the controls before hand. Some games put them on the screen while you're first playing (which I can do in this game), but what more can I do other than that?
#15 Sep 16 2009, 3:08 pm
Don't let them join until they've read through the help file?
#16 Sep 16 2009, 3:08 pm
SilkWizard wrote:
You act shocked, but the BYOND player base has been this way for years and years. Nothing about this should surprise you.

Basic business would suggest you either gear your game more toward the market's needs and hold their hand some, or find a market that better suits your product. I don't have much sympathy for the bad sales figures of a product aimed at a market it fails to meet the needs of.

In this case, the game could comfortably work, but it's pretty un-intuitive, even for someone with a little bit of patience (something this market does not have). Add to that the lack of marketing in general or perceived draw factor, and the result is really quite predictable and hardly worth a complaining blog post.

It's not unlike SuperAntx said, actually. Myself and TMM discussed this in more detail though, so I'm sure my comments won't be a surprise to him. He knows what he needs to do.
#17 Sep 16 2009, 3:09 pm
The Magic Man wrote:
So... Apparently, the problem for this issue is simple.

Make computers than can directly interface with a human brain, and then have the game adjust it's self based on what that human does/does not know about the game.

But seriously, other than making the help files for the game more obvious and apparent to new players. There is nothing I can do to account for what is effectively rubbish players.

Seriously, how many people here buy a new PC game, then jam every key on the keyboard until they figure out what keys do what?
Not me, I will usually look at the controls before hand. Some games put them on the screen while you're first playing (which I can do in this game), but what more can I do other than that?

Actually, I guess movement then play the tutorials.
#18 Sep 16 2009, 3:21 pm
After logging into the game and playing for 15 minutes, I feel I can safely say the following: It simply is not intuitive. I say this after having read the helpfiles (Which I *had* to read to figure out how to play, all the way through), and knowing full well how DoTA works in WC3, which is the game you're imitating gameplay-wise.

* Mouse clicks operate both to move and to target. This results in frequent misclicks. Bad bad bad.

* Target indicator is small and blends in with some characters / some environment.

* Abilities that can target yourself don't get used on yourself if you have no target. They also don't let you click the ability then a target.

* Abilities you can't use aren't greyed out, which often makes it difficult to figure out if you can use an ability or not. You both have to look if you have enough MP, and then if its not on cooldown - Thats two looks away from the map in an action-based game.

* The help files aren't presented to you unless you decide to visit the 'Help' menu up top. This is bad. Why is there no help file upon simply joining the game?

* Why is there no 'Getting started' helpfile? I had to do a combo of going back and forth between the two working helpfiles, to figure out how to play the game properly.

* Why is there no overlay on top of the ability icons, that shows what number an ability is?

* Why are you even shown abilities you can't use because you haven't skilled them up?

* Why don't the normal keyboard 1-0 double as the same as the numpad 1-0 for using abilities?

* Why can't I rebind what keys abilities trigger off? If you notice, DoTA, which you're imitating, uses Q,W,E,R,T,Y because that area is a natural area to have your left hand placed.

* Why is there no map of how the whole place looks? Its pretty hard to figure out even a general direction of where you want to go, when you have no clue how the map works. Don't need a minimap, just a total map that shows the environmental layout.

Some of these are less important than others, I leave it as an excersize to you to figure out which ones are total game killers and which ones are merely convenience.
#19 Sep 16 2009, 3:23 pm
Magicbeast20 wrote:
Don't let them join until they've read through the help file?

I actually tried something like this a while back.

I used the html marquee (scroll up) code for my Terms of Service. At the bottom of the Term of Service I had a button which allowed users to accept the following, "I have read through the ToS and, by pressing the following button, accept it." The catch, if you just went to a different window while the ToS was scrolling, you would most likely miss the button.

Due to this, the players were forced to either read or skim through the ToS, or they can simply leave. I would not mind the latter, as those are the type of players my game was not geared towards.

Please do realize the Terms of Service was not dreadfully long.
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