hi there, thought i'd chirp in on the DoW forums as well ^^
Almanro wrote:Be very careful that this may be tricky, e.g., if one profile is much stronger/useful than another one and it is unlocked only at lvl 12+, many new players may quit because they'll loose too many games (and so couldn't lvl up!) against older players who have already unlocked it, bringing back the difficulty to maintain a new player base.
I agree that devs should avoid setting too high a levelwall behind certain unit profiles, it just increases the gap between new/veteran players that much more.
after 3 weeks-1month of playing, a player should have unlocked access to buy/play all units. any longer, it would seem there is too much of an advantage to long-time players, having access to unit types that newbies do not have access to.
After that, playing that long they should already be hooked onto DoW or not. then, progression should just be ELO rankings, and out-of-game progression (unlocking new missions, new skins, new non-gameplay features). If you want real feeling of progression in rankings, there should be tiers (bronze, silver, gold etc.) and just aesthetic level system (like League of Legends, after a certain point levels dont really matter, until the last level lv30)
you guys were right to aim for a lower AP bracket though (250 maybe even 300)...the longer the game and more the units, that is more for the hardcore base, but less accessible to mainstream (as many ppl dont always have time for long games). all hardcore players were once casual, but not all casual gamers will be hardcore. if we get a really big veteran playerbase, im sure re-instating one higher AP bracket would be good, but pooling everyone into one APbracket and gamemode is best for population and game at this moment, imo.
as for being able to make money off the game, I think when more units/heroes come in, it will be more profitable. but we need a growing playerbase instead of declining, first. when it gets its feet, ppl will want to get more companies, new heroes etc. i think for new players, getting their first competitive company should be relatively easy, but to make multiple companies should be harder to maintain/achieve.
P.S. i wish you guys just scraped injuries alltogether...its one of the features in the game that is "anti-fun". someone suggested making it lore-related, like cool battle scares that are just for fun descriptions. i know it is part of company management, but maybe there are other ways that dont affect in-game gameplay directly. maybe if injuries only affected ability to successfully complete missions, or something else out-of-game. like a superficial morale meter. even if it doesnt mean anything, some ppl just dont want to keep their company in bad morale lol