The matchmaking is pretty friggen abysmal. I don't recommend it generally. I mean, even matchmaking aside. I have more than two friends, and I have four friends that play. There's no point to recommending anyone else get in on it because I play with the more experienced of the two, as opposed to the newbies. And why? Because they're stuck in Tier 3 until further notice, getting roflstomped by IV's. And that's IF I can convince them the core gameplay is enticing enough to stick around and suffer through it.
It's a -far cry- from the pre-shipyard update grind where all you needed to do was gain enough XP and credits to get what you need. Back then it was relatively easy to talk people into it because you had trader ships to piggyback on until you could join the big boys. Now, people take one look at this contrived "Level half a dozen ships you don't want to give the light of day just to have the officer briefings you need to have a strong build." business and go. "HAHA. No." And when they realize this and bring this up? I don't have a counter argument to that. Honestly if I hadn't played pre-shipyard, I'd have deleted this game a longggggggggggg time ago.
It's fun, sure, for me, someone who went into it knowing exactly what to do and how to do it from the instant it started, and had the money to burn like 300$ to skip progression as quickly as humanly possible to -get- to the builds I knew worked. But for new players with zero attachment? You greybox guys are really trying to kill this thing as far as most can tell. Almost zero transparency. This god-awful maintenance, sub-tree pseudo world of tanks nonsense that I'd have to seriously consider before wishing it on my enemies. I like what you've done in the past, and I like this game's core gameplay and potential, but you guys are really murdering it and I'm relatively sure it's some money grubbing sociopath accountant who only cares about numbers and short-term gains but this isn't the way to go.
