July 16, 2013

[nopoop]

Looking at the ranks today I noticed that the worst ranks were just under 3000. I remember just 2 or 3 years ago that number was 5000 or so. Where have almost half the player base gone and why ?

Amazing BUT, lately we have been busting 100 every day.  Good !!!

[DmonSlyr]

Looking at the ranks today I noticed that the worst ranks were just under 3000. I remember just 2 or 3 years ago that number was 5000 or so. Where have almost half the player base gone and why ?

Amazing BUT, lately we have been busting 100 every day.  Good !!!

Probably got tired of the Yak3s and spit16s up their prettythang every time they spent 15 minutes climbing to a base. Those 2 issues a alone have driven away most of the fighter base which is what made up most of the #s. #s are hanging in there. I was NOT very happy with bowlMA, CraterMA, and Buzzsaw taking over all of Xmas and New Years break. It's all about the maps now and the action they can sustain in the off hours that's going to bring more back.

[Fenin]

I don't know how big an issue the Yak or Spits have been, they're just planes imo, but I can tell you some simple UI overhauling would have gone a long way to help.  Instead of just saying that and leaving it I'll give an full example.

Lets look at the main game screen, when you first open it and talk about flow.  Especially new player onloading flow.  First off, stop assuming that younger people don't have the brainpower to handle this game.  Most of my friends are in their early 20s and can handle DCS level complexity without physical checklists after a few hours.  Kids aren't any dumber than they were 20 years ago, but they are MUCH pickier about how much a game can run them around in circles (outside of gameplay, inside of gameplay they're much worse lol) before they give up and try something else.

I would use images, but I'll stay clear of that for now as I'm not sure how well my screenshot softwares links would work here.

So, you have the main menu open and you're a new player, this is the immediate flow.

1) you're hit with loud, fairly short looped music
2) you're hit with the YT videos massive bass boom (that you don't care about)
3) you're given 12 different options on the kneeboard.

I'd like to bring up that my fresh install nearly blew my headset out with 1) and 2), but that's going to be a very personal system.

So, instead lets look at the buttons at our disposal.

-Online Arena
-Offline Missions
-Offline Practice
-Choose Terrain
-Graphic Detail
-Controls
-Training Test
-Account Admin
-Video Settings
-Release Notes
-Log Out
-Quit

We can put these all into a few groups, but something that I think is very important is actually missing from this list.  Preferences.  You have to go into an offline arena -> Options - Preferences to get to that. Why is that important?

Because you just started blaring a loud, and fairly short looping song at a new player.  Their immediate response is going to be to turn it down and the sound options are basically hidden.

Lets go back to those groups though, and assume you move Preferences into the list.

Now we've got

-Gameplay related
  -Online Arenas
  -Offline Missions
  -Offline Practice
  -Choose Terrain
  -Training Test

-Settings related
  -Graphics Detail
  -Controls
  -Preferences
  -Video Settings

-Account related
  -Account Admin
  -Log out

-Other
  -Quit

Now then.  There's nothing really neat about that either, there's cross referenced things.  But lets say we could lower it to a few less than the 12 options.  You start to create a workflow for interacting with this part of the game.  Assume the main categories on the next list open into a right hand side category (much like how options -> preferences does on the kneeboard in 'sim'.)

-Online Play      ->Online Arenas
      ->Acount Administration
      ->Log Out

-Offline Play   ->Offline Missions
            ->Move Training Test into this section
      ->Offline Practice
      ->Choose Terrain
      
-Settings    ->Graphics Detail
            ->Video Settings into this section
      ->Controls
      ->Preferences
      
-Quit

Suddenly a new player is given only FOUR starting points for how to start interacting with the software that branch out to things that logically make sense.  That's what you have to keep in mind, they don't mind complexity but they don't want their chains yanked and run around in circles.  If your argument is that younger folks don't like complexity then I kindly ask you to go google how much Dwarf Fortress has just recently made with its UI overhaul and to rethink your position.

Now.  I would add another left side main tab to this list.  This would include all the videos that you've already made, and maybe more.  Reaching out to the community to make new ones wouldn't be bad, as people always love getting involved naturally.  It should be noted, Gen Z hates randomly playing videos in things just as much as we hated flash videos randomly playing noise in IE on Windows XP 18 years ago.  If they want that information they WILL seek it out.

-Training
   ->Basics - Would handle showing where everythin is in the UI, how to set up your controls, etc etc.  It would basically go over all the actual control options and how to capture bases!

   ->Aviation - Broken down into sections for fighters and bombers, no need to go into massive detail but point people in the right directions.  This is a great place to drop info like 'look up Fighter Combat by Shaw' or things of that nature.  It of course also needs to be the videos you teach them how to bomb in, use rockets, the whole nine yards.

   -> Ground and Sea Forces - Pretty self explanitory, same as the aviation side but for ground units.

   ->Other - This would handle things like setting up your squadron, using the CV in game, maybe even going into detail on strat raiding and things of that nature. 

I'm not going to say that what I've written here is by any means perfect, but it really goes to show what people sort of mean when they say 'the UI is clunky.'  Which it is.  It's also usable, if you have the willpower to push thru it or someone to point you in the right direction.  Assume though that they won't be, and won't have that person there to help.  I can say from very recent communication with my group that they 100% would not have pushed thru the UI.  They're glad they did, but without an older hand that had used it before being there to inform them it would have been for nothing.
      

[DmonSlyr]

God, that tour shows just how beast mode TonyJoey was in that P51. Good grief.

The P51 had almost 16K kills that tour. Crazy. Next was the spit16, La7, and 190D. With half the kills. The 190D had a 1.6 k/d, far better than the La7 and spit16. So definitely a nuisance. 389k total deaths. Over 315k more deaths than July this year.

[DmonSlyr]

I don't know how big an issue the Yak or Spits have been, they're just planes imo, but I can tell you some simple UI overhauling would have gone a long way to help.  Instead of just saying that and leaving it I'll give an full example.

Lets look at the main game screen, when you first open it and talk about flow.  Especially new player onloading flow.  First off, stop assuming that younger people don't have the brainpower to handle this game.  Most of my friends are in their early 20s and can handle DCS level complexity without physical checklists after a few hours.  Kids aren't any dumber than they were 20 years ago, but they are MUCH pickier about how much a game can run them around in circles (outside of gameplay, inside of gameplay they're much worse lol) before they give up and try something else.

I would use images, but I'll stay clear of that for now as I'm not sure how well my screenshot softwares links would work here.

So, you have the main menu open and you're a new player, this is the immediate flow.

1) you're hit with loud, fairly short looped music
2) you're hit with the YT videos massive bass boom (that you don't care about)
3) you're given 12 different options on the kneeboard.

I'd like to bring up that my fresh install nearly blew my headset out with 1) and 2), but that's going to be a very personal system.

So, instead lets look at the buttons at our disposal.

-Online Arena
-Offline Missions
-Offline Practice
-Choose Terrain
-Graphic Detail
-Controls
-Training Test
-Account Admin
-Video Settings
-Release Notes
-Log Out
-Quit

We can put these all into a few groups, but something that I think is very important is actually missing from this list.  Preferences.  You have to go into an offline arena -> Options - Preferences to get to that. Why is that important?

Because you just started blaring a loud, and fairly short looping song at a new player.  Their immediate response is going to be to turn it down and the sound options are basically hidden.

Lets go back to those groups though, and assume you move Preferences into the list.

Now we've got

-Gameplay related
  -Online Arenas
  -Offline Missions
  -Offline Practice
  -Choose Terrain
  -Training Test

-Settings related
  -Graphics Detail
  -Controls
  -Preferences
  -Video Settings

-Account related
  -Account Admin
  -Log out

-Other
  -Quit

Now then.  There's nothing really neat about that either, there's cross referenced things.  But lets say we could lower it to a few less than the 12 options.  You start to create a workflow for interacting with this part of the game.  Assume the main categories on the next list open into a right hand side category (much like how options -> preferences does on the kneeboard in 'sim'.)

-Online Play      ->Online Arenas
      ->Acount Administration
      ->Log Out

-Offline Play   ->Offline Missions
            ->Move Training Test into this section
      ->Offline Practice
      ->Choose Terrain
      
-Settings    ->Graphics Detail
            ->Video Settings into this section
      ->Controls
      ->Preferences
      
-Quit

Suddenly a new player is given only FOUR starting points for how to start interacting with the software that branch out to things that logically make sense.  That's what you have to keep in mind, they don't mind complexity but they don't want their chains yanked and run around in circles.  If your argument is that younger folks don't like complexity then I kindly ask you to go google how much Dwarf Fortress has just recently made with its UI overhaul and to rethink your position.

Now.  I would add another left side main tab to this list.  This would include all the videos that you've already made, and maybe more.  Reaching out to the community to make new ones wouldn't be bad, as people always love getting involved naturally.  It should be noted, Gen Z hates randomly playing videos in things just as much as we hated flash videos randomly playing noise in IE on Windows XP 18 years ago.  If they want that information they WILL seek it out.

-Training
   ->Basics - Would handle showing where everythin is in the UI, how to set up your controls, etc etc.  It would basically go over all the actual control options and how to capture bases!

   ->Aviation - Broken down into sections for fighters and bombers, no need to go into massive detail but point people in the right directions.  This is a great place to drop info like 'look up Fighter Combat by Shaw' or things of that nature.  It of course also needs to be the videos you teach them how to bomb in, use rockets, the whole nine yards.

   -> Ground and Sea Forces - Pretty self explanitory, same as the aviation side but for ground units.

   ->Other - This would handle things like setting up your squadron, using the CV in game, maybe even going into detail on strat raiding and things of that nature. 

I'm not going to say that what I've written here is by any means perfect, but it really goes to show what people sort of mean when they say 'the UI is clunky.'  Which it is.  It's also usable, if you have the willpower to push thru it or someone to point you in the right direction.  Assume though that they won't be, and won't have that person there to help.  I can say from very recent communication with my group that they 100% would not have pushed thru the UI.  They're glad they did, but without an older hand that had used it before being there to inform them it would have been for nothing.

Very solid post here that I think everyone should read. I think there are some great points.

[Shuffler]

I don't know how big an issue the Yak or Spits have been, they're just planes imo, but I can tell you some simple UI overhauling would have gone a long way to help.  Instead of just saying that and leaving it I'll give an full example.

Lets look at the main game screen, when you first open it and talk about flow.  Especially new player onloading flow.  First off, stop assuming that younger people don't have the brainpower to handle this game.  Most of my friends are in their early 20s and can handle DCS level complexity without physical checklists after a few hours.  Kids aren't any dumber than they were 20 years ago, but they are MUCH pickier about how much a game can run them around in circles (outside of gameplay, inside of gameplay they're much worse lol) before they give up and try something else.

I would use images, but I'll stay clear of that for now as I'm not sure how well my screenshot softwares links would work here.

So, you have the main menu open and you're a new player, this is the immediate flow.

1) you're hit with loud, fairly short looped music
2) you're hit with the YT videos massive bass boom (that you don't care about)
3) you're given 12 different options on the kneeboard.

I'd like to bring up that my fresh install nearly blew my headset out with 1) and 2), but that's going to be a very personal system.

So, instead lets look at the buttons at our disposal.

-Online Arena
-Offline Missions
-Offline Practice
-Choose Terrain
-Graphic Detail
-Controls
-Training Test
-Account Admin
-Video Settings
-Release Notes
-Log Out
-Quit

We can put these all into a few groups, but something that I think is very important is actually missing from this list.  Preferences.  You have to go into an offline arena -> Options - Preferences to get to that. Why is that important?

Because you just started blaring a loud, and fairly short looping song at a new player.  Their immediate response is going to be to turn it down and the sound options are basically hidden.

Lets go back to those groups though, and assume you move Preferences into the list.

Now we've got

-Gameplay related
  -Online Arenas
  -Offline Missions
  -Offline Practice
  -Choose Terrain
  -Training Test

-Settings related
  -Graphics Detail
  -Controls
  -Preferences
  -Video Settings

-Account related
  -Account Admin
  -Log out

-Other
  -Quit

Now then.  There's nothing really neat about that either, there's cross referenced things.  But lets say we could lower it to a few less than the 12 options.  You start to create a workflow for interacting with this part of the game.  Assume the main categories on the next list open into a right hand side category (much like how options -> preferences does on the kneeboard in 'sim'.)

-Online Play      ->Online Arenas
      ->Acount Administration
      ->Log Out

-Offline Play   ->Offline Missions
            ->Move Training Test into this section
      ->Offline Practice
      ->Choose Terrain
      
-Settings    ->Graphics Detail
            ->Video Settings into this section
      ->Controls
      ->Preferences
      
-Quit

Suddenly a new player is given only FOUR starting points for how to start interacting with the software that branch out to things that logically make sense.  That's what you have to keep in mind, they don't mind complexity but they don't want their chains yanked and run around in circles.  If your argument is that younger folks don't like complexity then I kindly ask you to go google how much Dwarf Fortress has just recently made with its UI overhaul and to rethink your position.

Now.  I would add another left side main tab to this list.  This would include all the videos that you've already made, and maybe more.  Reaching out to the community to make new ones wouldn't be bad, as people always love getting involved naturally.  It should be noted, Gen Z hates randomly playing videos in things just as much as we hated flash videos randomly playing noise in IE on Windows XP 18 years ago.  If they want that information they WILL seek it out.

-Training
   ->Basics - Would handle showing where everythin is in the UI, how to set up your controls, etc etc.  It would basically go over all the actual control options and how to capture bases!

   ->Aviation - Broken down into sections for fighters and bombers, no need to go into massive detail but point people in the right directions.  This is a great place to drop info like 'look up Fighter Combat by Shaw' or things of that nature.  It of course also needs to be the videos you teach them how to bomb in, use rockets, the whole nine yards.

   -> Ground and Sea Forces - Pretty self explanitory, same as the aviation side but for ground units.

   ->Other - This would handle things like setting up your squadron, using the CV in game, maybe even going into detail on strat raiding and things of that nature. 

I'm not going to say that what I've written here is by any means perfect, but it really goes to show what people sort of mean when they say 'the UI is clunky.'  Which it is.  It's also usable, if you have the willpower to push thru it or someone to point you in the right direction.  Assume though that they won't be, and won't have that person there to help.  I can say from very recent communication with my group that they 100% would not have pushed thru the UI.  They're glad they did, but without an older hand that had used it before being there to inform them it would have been for nothing.

That looks pretty well thought out to me. Issue points with good reasoning on how to improve the problem areas.

[whiteman]

I don't know how big an issue the Yak or Spits have been, they're just planes imo, but I can tell you some simple UI overhauling would have gone a long way to help.  Instead of just saying that and leaving it I'll give an full example.

That is a completely logical and how the games i play are set up. Easy to find and get around.

[Lusche]

Looking at the ranks today I noticed that the worst ranks were just under 3000. I remember just 2 or 3 years ago that number was 5000 or so.

I don't know where you finding that, as last tour we only had 887 pilots with at least one kill or death.  Three years ago that number was 1101.
There is no way anyone is getting a sub rank in anything at" just under 3000" 

[Shuffler]

Probably got tired of the Yak3s and spit16s up their prettythang every time they spent 15 minutes climbing to a base. Those 2 issues a alone have driven away most of the fighter base which is what made up most of the #s. #s are hanging in there. I was NOT very happy with bowlMA, CraterMA, and Buzzsaw taking over all of Xmas and New Years break. It's all about the maps now and the action they can sustain in the off hours that's going to bring more back.

You are right there as I do not fly much at all these days. Tonight all I saw were spits, LAs, and 51s. It is like all the good players have left the game.

[Fenin]

That looks pretty well thought out to me. Issue points with good reasoning on how to improve the problem areas.

Thank you, though I fear it will be lost if I keep it here and don't put it in wishlist.  Perhaps a double post would be in order.

As for some time I spent on tonight with one of my wings, I'd say it's not terribly varied, no.  BUT, we were rolling in Ki-84s at the start of the night and winging quite happily in close two ship over one of the airfields.  Not a ton of kills for us, but we both made it out alive (on the first sortie at least) and helped a few people secure some kills of their own. 

The AH Meta, as it sits right now, is stale.  There's ups and downs to that.  One of the up sides is that you can plan around it.  I always assume every dot I ever see is a P-51D, 109K-4, La-7, 190D, or Spit16.  Expecting them, even in my normal ride of a Zero means I can be ready to deal with them as best as possible more cleanly.  Which is generally to get my wing in a faster ride to run them down some, or preferably even fully nail them to an area, and saddle in.

One of the downsides of course is that it's 'repetitive.'  Nevermind some of you having 15-20 years of hearing the sentence 'La-la on your six' and reflexively moving your right hand like you're trying to hook a fish the size of godzilla.    It is kind of a case of chicken before the egg, I think.  More people more variety.  That's how it was back in the day from my memories. 

We need to work towards better onloading.  Dale, from what I've read, has stated in multiple places that most new installs don't even make it to the Arena,  but my memory may be failing me.

[Eagler]

Great post, great ideas

Not sure if we can get any movement on them...

Just changing up main would go a long ways ..

Have a tour that has smaller maps that spawn with only a mid war plane set every 3rd map would add a variety that is missing today..

It would help to pull the 190D and 51 guys out of those planes ... I don't think they would whine if they knew it was just a map or two long and lw planes would be in the next map

Eagler

[CptTrips]

I don't know where you finding that, as last tour we only had 887 pilots with at least one kill or death.  Three years ago that number was 1101.
There is no way anyone is getting a sub rank in anything at" just under 3000" 

You're like the Wolfram Alpha of Aces High.

Would there be an easy way to compare that list of pilots with a similar list from the previous tour?  That might give a rough but imperfect estimation of paying members vs trials.

Is that a query anyone could do off the stats page?  (I've never looked at the sats page before. )

If not, if you could generate the two lists I could write something to compare them.

Also, while I'm pestering you , Do you have any stats that suggest what effect the 2008 GFC had on player numbers?  I was wondering what the effect on a deep recession in 2023 might have.

 

[Lusche]

Would there be an easy way to compare that list of pilots with a similar list from the previous tour?  That might give a rough but imperfect estimation of paying members vs trials.

While I would be able to do such a comparison, I would not think of it being any useful at all. There are so many old players coming back (often with new handles) or players simply changing names, I could never tell who was on a trial or not. I don't even have a ballpark guesstimate for that.

Is that a query anyone could do off the stats page?  (I've never looked at the sats page before. )

Basically yes, you just need to write a simple  tool that gets the pilot IDs from the plane stats lists.

Also, while I'm pestering you , Do you have any stats that suggest what effect the 2008 GFC had on player numbers? I was wondering what the effect on a deep recession in 2023 might have.

# of pilots with at least one kill or death (some players may have two or more pilots)

[CptTrips]

# of pilots with at least one kill or death (some players may have two or more pilots)

Thanks.

Offf. Correlation doesn't prove causation, but it doesn't suggest a bad recession is particularly good for player subscriptions.  Of course that also correlated with the abandonment of Tour of Duty, right?

Damn statistics.

Maybe comparing the effect of the next bad recession would help isolate the two factors.  Though I suspect the player base in 2023 would be a lot more durable than the player base of 2008 due to having survived the last episode.  Assuming they had been here then.

I might DM you with questions and advice someday if I get curious enough to write some code to scrape some of that, if you wouldn't mind.  It's really interesting to look into the hidden realms of numbers.

 

[DmonSlyr]

Thanks.

Offf. Correlation doesn't prove causation, but it doesn't suggest a bad recession is particularly good for player subscriptions.  Of course that also correlated with the abandonment of Tour of Duty, right?

Damn statistics.

Maybe comparing the effect of the next bad recession would help isolate the two factors.  Though I suspect the player base in 2023 would be a lot more durable than the player base of 2008 due to having survived the last episode.  Assuming they had been here then.

I might DM you with questions and advice someday if I get curious enough to write some code to scrape some of that, if you wouldn't mind.  It's really interesting to look into the hidden realms of numbers.

 

A recession could have very well been the cause initially and this is one of those games where momentum matters in player #s. If more people are playing than more people want to play and vice versa. So a lot of people leaving slowly caused more people to leave as the fights grew smaller. I figure once the squads got fed up not being able to fly on the same map with each other, that's when a lot squad #s dropped. It caused a chain. When off hours are low this shows lower daytime and nighttime overall players. That's why I think smaller maps for the game would help off hours so much and bring more foreigners back to the game.

Warthunder started in 2012 and that stole a lot of future players. Il2 got better and it's been much harder to compete using the subscription model.