The SSL rut and possible ways to get out of it.

Disclaimer: this post this mostly a discussion about various issues from a single persons perspective from both sides of the issue and may or may not be accurate representation of the said issues.

Currently Shellshock live is in rut in terms of players with the average peak player count dropping every month because of people dropping the game for various personal reasons. Because of the growing unease in the community about the games future the community's been split into two camps, one side thinking the game will recover eventually or once it becomes a finished product and the other side thinking the game is failing and has almost no hope for recovery.Below I would like to like to discuss both sides of the potential issues people have with the game as a whole, and offer a couple of general suggestions to hopefully satisfy both sides and get the game out of this Rut.

Argument #1: Grinding

Right now the main complaint about the grind is it takes far too much time to get anywhere in the game often requiring 500-700 hours "20.8-29.1 days of pure gameplay" to get from level 1-90 and unlock a majority of what the game has to offer which is a lot of time to ask for from anyone as people have school, work, other responsibilities to take care of and don't wish to invest all their limited free time into this game.

Counter argument #1: Grinding

A lot of people seem to believe the grind is really bad, compared to how it was when the game first came out a lot of extra options have been added to help gain additional experience, not only that the entire experience curve to level up was changed to make it much easier for users to level, reducing the once 300+ hours it took to get from level 1-80 to about 100-200 hours.

Solution #1: Grinding

A possible solution for the grind issue is split the multiplayer into two modes. One would be rankings mode where you would have to grind, level up, and unlock everything like normal to appear on the games rankings "basically the default setup right now", but reward those who makes it to certain levels with tags, cool exclusive tank skins, or something else cosmetic to show off to others.and a for fun type game mode that allows users to use every available weapon ingame by default and also customize their rooms to pick what weapons would and would not appear in the pool of weapons, what tank setup would both players have at the start I.E: what gun, traction, armor, luck would both players tanks be at, and the frequency of stage obstacles such as bumpers, portals, earthquakes and 2x buffs. "for those that like those customized matches" The downfall of all of this though is games played in this mode will not get you any experience of any kind and this would be more of a mode to play if players do not want to spend hundreds of hours trying to unlock everything and just want to experience everything the game has to offer.

Argument #2: Development

No one ever seems to know what's going on with development with the game until an update actually arrives due to Kchamp very rarely talking to the community on his current plans for the game or what project he is working on in general. Not only that updates are few and far in between often taking 2-4 weeks to see a new update, that usually can only be experienced by the higher leveled players which is demoralizing to some players.

Counter argument #2: Development

Kchamp to my knowledge is the only one developing this game and has the responsibilty of doing all the games development, PR, marketing, ETC. As much as we try to deny it there is only so much work a single person can do, it's true he could possibly hire help to speed up development but no one knows and probably will never know his current financial situation due to various non disclosure agreements he had to make when pushing his games.


Solution #2: development

The main issue with everything is the community does not know what's going on or even if Kchamp is working on the steam version of the game or not. One way to lower the unease of the community is once a month post a list of features, updates, etc that are planned to be released that month so everyone knows exactly what to expect next from you. Another way to get some positive PR is possibly live streaming yourself working on the game and using that time to answer any questions the community may have for you while getting work done at the same time. If the community were to know exactly what is coming to the game next I'm pretty sure most would put up with the slower paced updates.


Topic #3: Declining players

I won't write an argument and counter argument for this issue because there are too many possible reasons to list why this may be happening, and it would be impossible to say for certain which of the many issues are the main reason why players are leaving the game without doing a large survey. So instead I will offer a couple of potential solutions to help possibly increase the player count.

• Send a email request with a steam key to the game to various gaming youtubers requesting that make a let's look at video, even if a very small handful actually do make a video the almost free publicity will help drive sales. Just be prepared that not every youtuber that does make a video of SSL is gonna like the game any may talk very negatively about it.
  
  
• Allow Players to purchase Steam keys with tank coins in SSl2, giving the SSl2 community an alternative option to buy the game may motivate some to try the game out as there are always will be some players with a surplus of tank coins.
  
  
• Give out steam keys, you have spend money to make money and giving away a limited amount steam keys to those within the ssl1/ssl2 community will help increase the average active players playing and warm others up into buying the game due to the fact the game wont seem so empty anymore.

Argument #4: Stale gameplay

Currently there is only a handful of modes to play from, deathmatch, team match, free for all, points juggernaut and assassin mode, and each one of those modes get incredibly stale after awhile due to the fact all matches seem exactly the same aside from the occasional new weapon to mix things up for a couple of matches until the novelty wears out

Counter Argument #4: Stale gameplay

Gameplay is only as stale as it is because everyone focuses on nothing but leveling up and play the preferred leveling setup all day. People rarely so much as touch the other modes now because the experience is not good enough to justify playing it.


Solution #4

A way to counter the repetitive gameplay is add more things to customize how games play out such as more stage hazard, more in depth tank customization, some different types of Buffs and debuffs you can get. Personally I feel that if we add more depth into matches to make them feel different all the time and add more replayability people would not feel like the gameplay is as stale as it is.


There are of course many other debates going on with this game that I could take the time to list but I just wanted to write up a couple of issues and gauge everyone's general response and interest in something like and see what everyone thinks.

 

I like how you wrote point of views from both sides to keep it as unbiased as possible. . Nice thread.

 

Isn't what what we supposed to learn to school

Good job btw explaining both sides

 

I wonder if people saw how many hours they put into SSL2 I wonder how quickly Argument 1 would've came up. The amount of xp it takes to get from 1-80 is ~200,000xp which is a fairly high level and good enough to even take on the prestige ranks ahead. The SSL2 equivalence of that is only a prestige and a bit over a half of the next one. The XP gain as far as a typical 1v1 deathmatch goes without deluxe in ssl2 is relatively the same as ssls and ssls requires less xp to reach cap than ssl2. It's more fair in SSL2 because you had to start over 10 times just to get 1 weapon, while you don't ever have to lose your weapons on steam. Based on how many people are even prestige two in ssl2 it shows that not a lot of people play the game for very long either, we just don't notice it because new players replace them as fast as they leave.

I like your solutions though I'm just concerned and wondering why most of these problems that you listed here are noticed in the steam version and not in ssl2 unless I am missing something.

 

Nobody wants to go there when it comes to SSL2, it becomes apparent every time how this all is still prevalent/shockingly obvious on SSL2 yet its viewed as the better game only because of the vast community some reason playing there still.

I agree with your points man. I mean for how long did things so obvious now on 2 were we blinded to because we had no clue. Now looking back, it still shocks me how much time I put in there and how little I got out of it overall when you really sit down and analyze it. The real head scratcher to me is all the time I put into SSL1, talk about a game that didn't deserve all the time put into it just so I could come up 3 levels short of the max.

 

Is volunteering available? Well the best way to communicate is social media aka Twitter etc

 

Bro, all you gotta do is make like a thread and post there once per week or something about what you're doing/planning and how you're doing. You really don't have to be best friends with every single member. You just have to do something that lets all of us know the current state of the game and your mind about development. Also about hiring devs and Steam keys, that's something we've been ranting about for several months now. Few dramas could've been prevented if you let us know, am I right?

This post you just made is a perfect example. Just do something like you just did every week or so.

With such community I strongly do not recommend him to hire devs as a volunteer.

EDIT: Edited because few people found this post offensive

 

But I don't have access to the Ingame server console

I meant other way around volunteering as temp devs

 

That's exactly what I wrote and what I meant.

 

It sounded like hiring devs to work without pay

 

Work without pay is volunteering... lol...

Not posting further more because spam.

 

Hold up, hold up. Wasn't that the point of your blog? Speaking of that blog, it seems like you kinda abandoned it...
"404 This page is unavaliable"
While it was up, I checked it every day. If you were to restart it, you could make a brief summary of what you hope is to come out in the next update in each post. That way, we'd know what is coming. Also, maybe an approximation of when the update will come out (EX: The week of 9/6) might help us, too.

 

Another way for Kyle to communicate effectively is to get like a secretary or someone that is officially (so people would trust that person) "hired" by Kyle and announce updates etc while Kyle can continue making the next update.

 

hmm kyle you could broadcast to a small group of people from steam have them talk about some things tell them about what's going on what's up have "brainstormers" are a really neat thing to keep around have new ideas to be voted have a new one every week or so like what you did before but some get forgotten.

have them make some concept art sometimes ideas on paper change a mind or two when that paper is filled in with colors
like what Batgirl said have someone know what's up? have them talk to people about your ideas and people can give you back some other ideas

 

As he said, kChamp doesn't have the ability to hire someone like that. He'd have to tell an admin or something, and if he does that, he might as well tell us all in a blog or on the forums. That wouldn't work, sadly.

 

I like this idea, but I don't think it would work. This will NOT change their reputation among the community. There would just be more "No Item" games. It would be a waste of his time to develop something most of the community currently would never use.
If this is added, this should be added on release, not now.
To add on to the idea, you could get a certain amount of gears for each item you had before the switch. It would be another way for him to reach out to the community and say "Thanks."

 

I get what you mean but I personally would use it. Because it would be fair for everyone since everyone for the most part has the same amount and ability to use them.

It also adds much more variety in the game instead of, here's a weapon I'm going to shoot it this way. It would be more like, I have this weapon I can shoot it at them, or I could rest take my chance and get a supply drop and hope for something better. Or perhaps like, I have 20 energy but I'm in a ditch, I could use a jetpack and be safe or wait a round and teleport and hope I get even further away. Perhaps maybe like I could teleport now and maybe get lucky or rest this round and use a shield next round. It just adds a good bit more strategy to the game instead of just shooting at the opposing team.

 

I'll do my best to get game out there. Even my steam profile is a giant ad for ssl

 

Wow Mallard good useful post. I think if the game was a bit more rewarding or fun people wouldn't mind earning these rewards. I know that the best part about getting a decent weapon is knowing you earned it, and didn't have it handed to you.

If you enjoy the game like you once did, like anyone can with a reason. Friends and clans whatever works. It not a bad grind.

 

Go back to the dev blog and don't update it simply when updates are released, conduct a "daily blog post" that gives us information on what to expect on the next update, what is being worked on, progress with bugs, etc. It takes two minutes to pull up the page, write a few sentences and post.

Or for non-forum users maybe have a tab in the game named "What's Coming or Dev Corner" that shows the same message but ingame so anyone can view. I think it's tedious waiting a couple days to see what the update will be, and it will gather more hype if you post something like "New game mode in the works!" one day, followed with "Are you guys ready to Capture the Flag?" the next day, showing us what is being developed.

That could even be fun with weapons, having people try to guess what weapons are being added by showing their small icon or something, to get weapon hype up.

And as for game variety, the core of the game is simple, shoot a tank and they shoot you. We do not need intensive, intricate RPG elements thrown in. The environmental maps idea would give a ton of variety alone while keeping the base gameplay the same, as well as many other of the ideas posted here on the forum.

 

I know its quite enjoyable for the most part to many but its odd how many from the SSL2 era don't see it the same way. I mean busting my butt for 100 levels with friends is way better than grinding countless hours with random people just to get to level 50 again for a Prestige level and then having the dissatisfaction of gettign my arsenal reset/having to do it all over again.

There will always be heavy criticizers and people saying whatever to justify their claims abut why they feel that way but to say the game is worse than SSL2 is not accurate. Better yet like Kyle said we need to draw attention to this game and not drive people away from it. At the same time not lower the standards so you can have something more easily attainable then others that put in more time than you. Kyle wants SSL2 to remain some what popular so he can make some money for it and retain a sustainable fan base there but for the most part drive the majority away from it to the steam version.

A lot of people take a game too seriously as was the case on the last two versions, I mean look at the leader board on 2.(Proof people don't mind grinding)

In the end its gonna work if you go into it with a positive attitude instead of a badgering one. Its completely possible if you keep doing your best to work with what we are given and provide solutions. Given hes looking at them its no reason to get all tight cause he isn't instituting things as quickly as he could on flash.

 

I don't think a huge crowd is going to buy a BETA game, mainly just the people from SSL2. When Kyle gets the bugs fixed and most of the content added he can release and watch the game grow.