Rick, it simply can not be accepted that you'd want to do this for any other reason then to encourage a revenue stream.

It is cancerous and poisonous to the community, it completely undermines and competitive legitimacy, and it fragments the casual scene.

I'd like to keep playing dreadnought but basically everyone I play with uninstalled after the announcement of 2.0.

It is very disappointing that you took a game with so much promise, that was so tight and in such a good place this early in development and essentially wasted all that potential.

I've recently started playing Dreadnought and found a lot to like about the game in its current state: a perhaps somewhat League of Legends-esque f2p experience where progression unlocks different types of content and playstyles rather than simply stronger ships (up to a certain point, at least). And big ships. Explosions. What's not to like? I was even considering buying a Founder's pack to get some of my friends in on it.

After reading the Progression 2.0 post and the comments here, however, I'm starting to have some doubts. Surely dividing matchmaking into ship tiers would severely fragment an already small (as far as I can tell) playerbase. Grinding for stronger ships seem far less enticing than looking forward to an unique ship subclass that plays very differently than your current one, for example. Being matched against significantly stronger ships would doubtless be an unpleasant experience as well. I have discussed with my friends and they are pretty turned off by the concept.

I'm sure there are different ways to do progression without hurting the competitive integrity of the game. Using League of Legends again as an example, there is a brief one or two month grind (which can be accelerated with paid boosts) to level 30, during which you unlock various stat increases, before you are on a mostly level playing field with everyone else, but with less variety in the characters you can play than people who have paid and so on. At level 30 the game also continues to provide a small progression scheme with runes that allow you to customise your stat bonuses. Admittedly League of Legends has more flexibility in their champion diversity than Dreadnought, but the example still stands.

Granted, the new progression system might not be bad as it seems, but it is a new direction that does not seem as attractive as what is currently available.

My $0.01.

EDIT: Did anyone watch this? This is a great way to do ship monetisation, Fractured Space seems to have that aspect right at least. Sorry idk how to do the quote properly but the link's here (https://youtu.be/PyepIn8MBio?t=41)

fofo#8721 posted (#post-40866)

Odinous#5262 posted (#post-40843)

chryseusAquila#3803 posted (#post-40622)

Tier system is a necessity in a F2P.

(some mediocre meme)

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https://youtu.be/PyepIn8MBio?t=41

Snib#1627 posted (#post-40874)

It's a bit naive to think that feedback could change anything about this, it's too costly to develop (both in time and money) to do a 180° after you implemented it unless your player numbers tank and you have no choice.

Remember the Concorde. (Look up Concorde fallacy.)

Haha, I'm actually old enough to remember that, but in a way it supports my point as well as yours. People loathe to walk away from any investment, that's why I don't expect them to walk away from this one.

The devs are not stupid, they certainly expected there to be player backlash so this is nothing that would sway them. Only hard numbers after release of 2.0 can, and let's hope they then will remember the Concorde if they have to.

GnlPublic#9533 posted (#post-41378)

Snib#1627 posted (#post-40874)

It's a bit naive to think that feedback could change anything about this, it's too costly to develop (both in time and money) to do a 180° after you implemented it unless your player numbers tank and you have no choice.

Remember the Concorde. (Look up Concorde fallacy.)

That is the most damning thing about it and what makes it easy to disregard much of what Rick had to say defending it.

They invested a great deal of work they knew they couldn't easily revert into this BEFORE informing the playerbase.

They didn't say "Hey players, we are thinking of doing tiers, can we get some feedback on your thoughts on that before we commit to it", they did it all in secret because they knew that it would drive off a significant amount of their playerbase. It was more along the lines of "We are doing tiers regardless of what you think.".

In a way they learned from the officer brief fiasco, the lesson they took wasn't that they needed to engage players earlier... it was that they couldn't engage the players at all.

Which BTW, I'd pay real money for Officer briefs WAY more readily then put up with tiers, I wish the community was consulted on this.

Honestly, fixing this wouldn't even be as hard as you're making it sound. Removing tiers is potentially as simple as removing the bonus stat increases they add to the higher-tier ships. If there's little enough ACTUAL variation between the ships, then, two things:

1. They shouldn't claim they're different ships anyway, and
2. They just need some tweaks to performance/loadout options/stats to give them a bit of a different feel.

I definitely won't say it's a simple job, but it's not a massive rework from the ground up - the models they've made already exist, and have at least an approximation of balanced stats to build from.

Also, this is looking - at the moment, at least - a lot more like the officer brief situation than some people seem to think. They didn't "announce" the plan first and ask what we thought. They dumped it into the game, and only made any "announcement" about it AFTER the storm of rage had flooded over the forums. They said THEN, after we'd already seen it in-game and realised what it was, that it was an experimental payment model they wanted feedback on. Given the forum response to this, I'm expecting them to be quite ready to rethink this decision just like they rethought that one.

I've read through these forums a lot now.. If you implement more skins and such, i will give you my money for them. If you implement this tier system in the way that it's been presented, i'm looking for other games.

I was hoping for something mechwarrior-like. It's similar to league of legends with its pay options. And LOL is the most popular game worldwide, i don't think anyone gets to call their model "bad." It's basically a great game concept, hooked up to an elo system, with a skin store and talent system stapled on. People love it and pay good money for it. It's not just a popular game, it's one that people keep playing (and paying for) for years on end.

A load of happy players is way better than a few begrudging ones, even if those begrudging ones ended up paying a bit more individually. It's a question of publicity, too. Look what happened to War Z, their idiotic team now has to change their name every time they release something, just to get someone to buy it. The difference is, War Z was never good, and this game is actually good right now.

I'm not buying that it's just about progression and player retention, this could easily be achieved with something less controversial than russian f2p trees like many have pointed out. My 2cents.

I prefer the actual Progression 1.0 it's simple and I like things like that, simple.

Although its usually a taboo to mention a specific game, it's a good example....

Star Conflict
- Space shooter, F2P but P2W
- Has 3 main ship types, scout, corvette, frigate
- Has a Tier System

Originally I thought this game to be very entertaining with its various tiers and new content upon tier unlocks. However as you progress into a higher tier, there are less players available at an exponential rate. I stopped playing this game back in 2014, one year after their Steam release. At the time of leaving there was around 1000 or less players, compared to 6 months prior having 10k+ players.

One of the main complaints were that of their tier system. It spanned 10 Tiers, with a mix of players being able to play with other tiers +/- a few tiers of theirs. However, progressing in those tiers incurred huge changes in skill levels and a need to almost relearn how to play. Not to mention the horrid increase in Match Making timers to find the few players who were lucky enough to continue to play at the high tiers due to costs of ships / equipment and other P2W issues.

I have also seen this trend in other P2W games like cough NavyField cough.
Although I compare using a F2P but P2W model, the tier system I have seen in the previous examples have had the same drawbacks. Mainly at player discontent with ever smaller player bases being available at higher tiers, huge increase in costs of items, and a large change in overall skill required.

I would say that tiers would be acceptable as long as there is a reasonable amount of tiers {3-5} and not something obnoxious like ten (Im looking at you, Wargaming)