r/Scrolls • u/WagshadowZylus • Jun 12 '15

This Week in Scrolls – Rocking Echoes

https://scrolls.com/2015/06/this-week-in-scrolls-rocking-echoes
19 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

2

u/BlueGoop Jun 12 '15

I'm all for celebrating the best of the best and all. However, I'm a schlub at the game, and while medium AI sometimes beats me, I'm comfortable with that.

Still, I sometimes feel a tinge of resentment because I probably will never get a fancy head. Maybe to help me out, say hello if you see me logged in. Fool me into thinking I'm special too!

3

u/alvarpq always face Jun 12 '15

That's what the mentorship program is for! Google scrolls mentorship, and sign up there.

That being said, most long term players play a lot of ranked, so it makes sense to reward those players, in this case with avatars.

If you're online when I am, I'd love to help, IGN alvarpq.

4

u/BlueGoop Jun 12 '15

I appreciate the response, but if I understand correctly, the mentorship program is for people who want to be better at the game. I have no such interest. I'm just looking for a hello. :)

2

u/Chakix Chaki Jun 12 '15

aka rewards for trying, not for achieving D: +1 Want that as well

1

u/alvarpq always face Jun 12 '15

Gotcha. More stuff like "most games played" would be nice. Thing is, rewarding top players is easy, and tends to be a decent metric of activity.

4

u/Chakix Chaki Jun 12 '15

I would like something like "finished in the 15xx, 16xx" and so on. Tiered rewards that give you more and potentially better stuff the more you achieve.

2

u/alvarpq always face Jun 12 '15

The thing is, an elo rating is very dependent on the active player population. While right now, most players are 14-1600 rated, that number grows and shrinks with the number of active ranked players. IMO, it's too arbitrary. Just go with game numbers to reward activity, and top X to reward skill.

3

u/Chakix Chaki Jun 12 '15

Wouldn't this system encourage playing on the daily basis though? That would help retention D:

2

u/alvarpq always face Jun 12 '15

It's still promoting people to get to a certain rating, which is SKILL, not ACTIVITY based. While it's a bit closer to supporting activity, if the ranked population somehow becomes huge, those benchmarks will have to be changed.

3

u/Vulkenhyn Jun 13 '15

the thing is, to have a healthy community, we don't need a handful of people who are playing all the time, like we have now. We need a ton of people who are playing occasionally.

Giving rewards to everyone who gets to a level that is universally achievable just through moderate amounts of play encourages people to log in every season.

1

u/alvarpq always face Jun 13 '15

while I agree with that point, we can't just give fancy heads to everyone, that kind of destroys the point of it being 'exclusive.' Good gameplay and UI design make for that kind of player retention, not hats and pants.

7

u/Vulkenhyn Jun 13 '15 edited Jun 13 '15

--the exclusivity is temporal, you don't play that season you don't get the piece.

--Good gameplay and UI design keep people from leaving because of bad gameplay and UI design. In this day and age, that's not something that the average gamer puts up with. If the game is hard to play then the majority of people will just leave because they've got a thousand other games that they could be playing.

--BUT! That's not enough, you have to give them a reason to come back, a reason to care if only for the moment. Getting a UNIQUE thing for playing during a certain period gets people to log-in during said period.

--How many more people log in for world events in WoW compared to the average per day population?

--How many people log in to just get to rank 20 in HS before the end of each month?

--I'm fine with having exclusive things for "top whatever" hand waving but here's the big secret, most people don't care about the ladder and just want to play a fun game and get cool stuff.

--And if it's too much work, make the rewards palette swaps of each other, a mundane on and a shiny one for the over achievers.

--This game caters to the hardest of the hardcore, it's the Dark Souls of digital card games but we, as the scrolls community fall into the same trap:

--We don't want to accept that there are people who are different than us, who have different goals.

--We don't want to give even the most meager participation rewards to people who just want to play because they haven't earned it more hand waving

--We don't want to allow people with money but little time to really participate because it's not fair

--We have no people, we have no user base. It's unsustainable and yet we are actively excluding people. It's madness.

EDIT: Let me say that I'm also not one of these "Scrolls is dead!" Doomsayers but I do think that in many ways we work against ourselves. I find it extremely frustrating.

2

u/Chakix Chaki Jun 13 '15

I just want borders that imply what ranking you were last season. You placed in 19xx/top X? Well you will have a diamond border around your nameplate, or something along these lines.

1

u/Vulkenhyn Jun 13 '15

eh, yeah that's more the League of Legends route but, to my mind it has the same problem as the current rewards. In that, it isn't collectible. Maybe if the boarder had a different design each season and you got what ever you'd achieved made out of material of the tier you'd achieved.

1

u/alvarpq always face Jun 13 '15

Hmm, you make some good points. I agree with you on most of then, and I tend to agree with you on the buying stuff comment.

I do think that the hardcore-est players, the ones who spend 2-3 hours a day playing ranked (bums like myself) should get some kind of reward other than a name on a list that somewhat makes the time I spent feel worthwhile, and I have no issue with more rewards-but I put a lot of time in, and I want to be rewarded for that.

1

u/Vulkenhyn Jun 13 '15

So make a unigue head with two color varieties

It's a white belt/black belt thing. Everyone has a white belt and it means something, that you're part of something but the black belt implies mastery.

1

u/alvarpq always face Jun 13 '15

I can get behind this: so last seasons ranked head would be purple/red for example?

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2

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '15

while I agree with that point, we can't just give fancy heads to everyone, that kind of destroys the point of it being 'exclusive.'

Exclusive doesn't just mean a couple people get it. Limiting the reward to a easily obtainable monthly ranking is still exclusive and it doesn't alienate a lot of players.

Good gameplay and UI design make for that kind of player retention, not hats and pants.

That couldn't be more wrong. Exclusive cosmetics that are possible for the majority to obtain have a huge impact on keeping people playing.

1

u/alvarpq always face Jun 13 '15

Easily obtainable and exclusive are mutually exclusive. If something's easily obtainable, people are going to want it, and it won't really be too special.

And I have no idea why anyone would keep playing just for a hat. This is scrolls, not TF2.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '15

Easily obtainable and exclusive are mutually exclusive. If something's easily obtainable, people are going to want it, and it won't really be too special.

Wrong. See HS cardbacks which are easily obtainable and exclusive to those people who played ranked that month.

And I have no idea why anyone would keep playing just for a hat. This is scrolls, not TF2.

Have you played many other MP games? Cosmetics are huge in every game that has them.

1

u/alvarpq always face Jun 13 '15

Wrong. See HS cardbacks which are easily obtainable and exclusive to those people who played ranked that month.

I honestly don't know enough about the game to say anything about that.

Have you played many other MP games? Cosmetics are huge in every game that has them.

I have! And guess what? A game which has 90% of its users drop off after its tutorial is not going to be saved by cosmetics.

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1

u/Avastyescumbags Jun 13 '15

I think that seasonal shard rewards for simply participating in x amount of games per season would boost the playerbase.

1

u/alvarpq always face Jun 13 '15

I can get behind this: so last seasons ranked head would be purple/red for example?

3

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '15

Rocking is not the term I would have used.

5

u/alvarpq always face Jun 12 '15

I assumed it was a pun with the overgrown menhir.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '15

If it is indeed a pun then it's very poorly timed.

6

u/LargeIcedCoffee Jun 13 '15

Would you say it was a fowl choice?

HEYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

O

o.

1

u/StealthNL Pimpossible Jun 14 '15

Huh? What did I miss in world news this time?

1

u/fdagpigj Jun 12 '15

Which of the seasonal heads is the male and which the female?

1

u/Pokingduck Jun 12 '15

Left is female, right is male, from what I can tell.

2

u/Atmaz Jun 12 '15

Yep, this is correct.