Main Arena will never be the insta pop that some of the young folks look for in today's games. Here part of the fun is getting there. That is if you have any friends.
I think you are right, but I wonder if you realize how much that is a core of the problem for HTC.
I think to a large part the Melee has become an old-dude-chat-room. Worse, its a fairly insular old-dude-chat-room composed of mostly the same guys who have known each other for 25 years.
I think a lot of the guys still here have adapted to the conditions like boiling frogs. They launch and put on auto-pilot and yuck it up with their buddies on private squad channel or have a purse fight on chan200. Occasionally they run across a fight and have a little bit of dogfighting, or chasing, die, take off, back on auto-pilot and continue their conversation. That's great fun I bet for some. They have adapted to the realities of the Melee in 2020. If it works for them, awesome. I can tell you it is a way different experience than it was in 2002-2004.
However think of it from a new guys perspective. Assuming they figure out how to get off the runway, (I know..big if, but let's assume BEST case scenario), so they fly around 15 min or so trying to find some action. All around them they just see players on auto-pilot. They are not on their private yuck channels. They are not on chan200 (thank COD), but to them, this just seems like an eternal auto-pilot simulator.
Most of them are probably not retired. The probably have a wife and kids and maybe they get a hour to fly one or two nights a week. If it take 15min from tower to a fight, assuming they don't have to chase someone, they might be lucky to get 4 good fights in their hour (of course as noobs they'll get isntantly slaughtered). Meanwhile their wife is pointing out that game costs more than their Netflix and points out he spends the majority of his time staring a the map on auto-pilot.
I know neither of us have the stats, but I'd be curious how many truly new players, not previous recycled players returning, not retreads from AW, or Warbirds, or WWIIOL who know Hitech, but completely new converts, does AH add per year that keep an account longer than 3 months.
I know there are a lot of factors HTC is having to fight to keep their chin above the tide, but I suspect pacing and cadence of action in the Melee (the primary product) is killing them when trying to earn new business. Even if it still makes a great chat room for the guys who have been here since 1999.
3 hour timer...why not. Anything that increases fluidity in the game is worth trying. It's an arena config. 30 sec to change or change back if it doesn't work well. Give it a try for a week.
$0.02.
