Having read some other posts on the forum, one thing that struck me was the need to feel as though we’re making progress. Players are becoming frustrated with a seemingly lack of progress, which can become a reason for quitting the game.
I think it’s important at this point to define two terms. Absolute progress is a measure that ignores all other players. (Examples of absolute measures of height would be to say that I am x cm tall). Relative progress is a measure of you compared to others (such as, I am taller than y% of the population of Britain)
The primary progress indicator that players use is infamy. But as we’re aware, infamy is a measure of our progress/strength relative to all other players at that particular point in time. We know that with an established player base there is a ‘power creep’, many players are getting stronger at the same rate. Therefore even though we improve (by completing training, improving gear, or by our own skills) that is often not reflected in infamy (or perhaps not to the level that we expect. Therefore, whilst infamy is a fantastic matchmaking tool which measures our relative skill, training, gear etc, it isn’t great for measuring absolute progress (ie progress which isn’t affected by other players) .
There are other progress measures in the game:
Captain level - which is a quite a simple, absolute measure showing our progress in reaching captain level 50 (and completing crew member training). It’s easily understood but it’s limitation is that it is just a measure of the degree of training completion. It takes no account of our gear or skill. It is very visible though, being shown next to player names for all players in our league, and for the top 50 in NML.
Gear Score - an absolute measure of how good our weapons and various items are. This is still a system under review with various gear and perks still not perceived as equivalent to their given gear score (turbo for example). This system takes no account of our training or skill. It is only visible by clicking on a particular player to see their profil.
Power Score - power score is the matchmaking tool for events. It is an absolute measure of training and gear score (though suffers due to the imperfections in the current gear scores). This score is not visible to players at all at the moment (you can’t even see your own) as it is perceived that this will lead to abuse of the system. It takes no account of skill - but is used in events on the basis that it will reward skill, good tactics and people who can quickly adapt to the rules of that event.
Of those measures, power score is probably the measure which would most allow players to feel that sense of progress. In a perfect world (where all bugs are ironed out of the system) they could quickly and easily see the absolute strength of their boat and how it compares to rivals and the top players.
One thing that should help players feel as though they’re making progress are achievements. Many other games make use of them to reward progress. Battle Bay does have achievements, but I don’t feel that they’re structured in a way to reward/recognise progress, but rather specific events that happen as a bi-product of you playing. Eg sink two ships with one torp, do x amount of healing in one game. Just because you do them in one game, doesn’t mean you are capable of repeating the feat consistently - which is what measuring progress should be about. (Although it would be nice if you automatically gained a link to the battle in which you completed the each of the current achievements so you could watch them again). Perhaps an achievement like ‘average 10,000 damage in per win’ (measured over last 100 wins) is more like the type of achievement I think we should be having.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. It would be good to hear other people’s thoughts on progress, especially if they have any other ideas for progress measures I’ve not mentioned. (I hope you don’t find it too long to read
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