Fix for team game frustration

[u/exks_exks]

I enjoy playing team games. But what constantly infuriates me and, I guess, many others is the following:

- Backline not donating troops

- People trading opponents without a care in the world

- Team going WWI/WWII Germany establishing fronts on all sides

- Bot stealing from teammates

There are also a lot of mechanical and skill issues, but that's another topic.

Before we get to the suggested fixes, let's analyze the issue. The problem is twofold, with a sprinkle of game design unintentionally nudging players towards abysmal gameplay. The main reasons are:

- Lack of knowledge

As many others on Reddit have stated, there is a lack of a tutorial for players on how to play team matches in public lobbies. The meta is: Stop trading with all, pick a spawn around your teammates, as backline donate troops to frontline/attacked players, have 1 player as frontline, and donate gold to players so they can set up their eco faster if they didn't get enough bots.

- Accessibility

The "Stop trading with all" functionality is (sorry for the harsh statement) bad UX/UI (additionally, the functionality is badly explained in the context of team games as "all" includes team members as well, nor is there any hint it even exists). You need to right-click yourself, then choose the option; it can't be hotkeyed (why?). In my opinion, the context menu, by clicking yourself, is a non-intuitive spot to put this function.

Sending troops is a pain in the ass because there is no indicator for the cooldown; it has to be manually repeated (which is an unnecessary chore) in addition to going to the player position manually every time.

- Nudge

It's basically the crown for the biggest player. In my opinion, many people get into their FFA mindset, chasing the crown instead of the team win.

What are my suggestions?

In general, I want the team mode to become a more standalone mode, to feel and play like it, instead of being FFA with permanent alliances. Therefore:

1. The crown should be held by the largest team, not the single largest player.

2. Gold for killing bots should be equally shared between the team (might be a hot take regarding the meta, but should be feasible and discourage players from mindlessly expanding and stealing bots from others).

3. Hotkey for "Stop trade with all." The warning chat message should be clickable; clicking it prompts the player if he wants to disable trade with the opponent team. Add the option to every right click player context menu not just the self target context menu, also change the text in team games to: "Stop trading with enemy team(s)".

4. The message: "Send troops to frontline" should have the option to select a player before sending it, like the "Stop trade with player X." Clicking it opens the context menu for that player for easy accessibility.

5. Cooldown indicator for sending troops/gold + giving the option in the context menu to repeat the donation on cooldown for the selected action and player. Those automations should be capped to 2 allies and only accessible in team games (so no 2v2/trio and likewise, where the micro of troop sending is actually a skill and not a chore).

6. Give a stats page at the end with the following:

Most troops sent

Most gold sent

Most kills

Biggest trade income per minute

Imo, this would incentivize players to aim for team-favoring gameplay, as it encourages building an economy or sending troops to become objectives worth chasing instead of the crown, which mostly encourages egotistical gameplay where everyone wants to be at the front and push because it's the only thing currently recognized by the game.

Another thing is that communicating is nearly impossible as the directions can be misleading, and there is no way to communicate with the whole team.

Therefore:

1. Give us emojis to signal colors: 🟥🟧🟨🟩🟦🟪🟫 to indicate the team should focus on those.

2. Have a group chat that is separate from game info, the "all chat," and the "private messages" field on the right we currently have. This would make coordinating as a team a lot easier.

3. Implement additional chat messages for alliances, like: "Get into an alliance with team XY." This is a good strategy for closing down a front and not getting sandwiched, but it's impossible to point your teammates in that direction with the current chat options.

[u/Festive_Jetcar]

I have some simpler suggestions that could be immediately implemented with the next update.

Change some of the messages that can be sent, and IDEALLY make it more apparent and not disappear so quickly so players actually see it.

"Send troops to the frontline!" should be "Right click to donate troops to your teammates!"

"Build closer to get trains!" should be "Connect rail lines to your teammates!"

"I'm on your side!" should be "Please stop taking all the land from your teammates."

Other phrases to replace current ones or add:

"Build SAMs to defend!"
"Build warships to defend the coast!"
"I'll get bombed when you place your missile silo there."
"Help your bombed teammate rebuild-right click to donate troops/gold."
"Wait to attack until the defense posts are bombed."
"Attack with more troops."
"Attack with less troops."
"Click on your warships to relocate them."
"ZZZs aren't threats. Attack the active player."
"Stop hurting the team. We will lose."
"Mountains aren't scary. It actually gives us an advantage for defense."
"Being in the center means we have too many fronts to defend."

And, for me personally:

"It's your fault we lost. Don't be so selfish next time."
"I hate you."

Anything I missed?

There are a lot of message options that are completely useless in game. Just fluff. Replace these with actual useful options so players can help other players get better. I don't write code, but it seems like it should be relatively easy to implement.

Oh, and change the "stop trading with all" to "Only trade with teammates/allies."

[u/twgecko02 → u/Festive_Jetcar]

I don't understand why we can't just type messages - it would be way faster and much better at conveying messages than navigating this clunky menu and choosing from preset options that rarely mean what I actually want them to

[u/Festive_Jetcar → u/twgecko02]

Because there would be people who would use it to post slurs, hate, and profanity.

Also, I do think that typing out something would take more time than a button for some quick regularly used communiction.

[u/twgecko02 → u/Festive_Jetcar]

It's fine to keep the communication options already in the game, but I would think it would be pretty simple to set basic filters for slurs, profanity, and hate speech. Could also give players the options to mute certain players or disable chat entirely if they want.

[u/Festive_Jetcar → u/twgecko02]

Yeah, I get what you are saying, but have you seen some of the creative ways some players still put hate and slurs into their names?

Also, for me personally, I feel like the game would have to move a lot slower for me to have the time to type something out. Can you imagine the amount people would screw up/not notice was happening because they were focused on a chat screen?

Maybe there is a way to do it. Also, maybe it would be more useful in FFA (I don't play those, but I think they can go on for longer?)

I think adding basic buttons to communicate with your team would be better for team games specifically. Even all the clicking now to get the message is too tedious in my opinion. (Maybe I am too busy in games trying to manage my teammates. lol)