Tank unlocks take too long to get.

[Duco]

I've mentioned it multiple times: tanks are a complete grind in the bottom to unlock.

Right now it takes a lot of time to unlock tanks.
It takes a lot of time to level them up.
It takes a lot of time to get modules for them.
It takes a lot of time to augment them.
Way too much time.

So, how long should it take to unlock a tank?
How long should it take to level it up?
Etc...

IMO only one or 2 of these things should take a long time. Not 4.

Discuss, I guess?

[Justin]

It takes a lot of time to unlock higher level tanks*
It takes a lot of time to level up past 30*
It takes a lot of luck to get modules for them*
It takes a lot of time to augment them highly*
Fair amount of time*

That's how I feel about it.

Edit: By high I mean above 12. If you use your long-term space and ability to buy items for a low price (if those items get liquidated for that price) the amount of time it takes to get tanks/augments is a lot less.

[Ood]

Duco,
Just a few comments:

Leveling alone can be challenging, leveling in a group is a piece of cake, my 120+ hornet is evidence of that (I was only maybe 20 something when gridshards and their bonuses [thus exp bonus] were eliminated).
Augments don't really do anything, at least not in comparison to modules. Augments can be bought fairly easily, and while hunting for modules, augments are found as well.
The playerbase is quite small, it takes us a long time to clear a region (I did one this past saturday in about 4 hours, I think that's one of the quickest times), get subcommanders and commanders (both are best sources of modules in my opinion)
The playerbase is quite small, it takes us a long time to hash out convoy routes because lately we've been focusing on regions. There's not enough people for us to efficiently do both at the same time.
Convoys, subco's, and commanders are the best sources of high level items, items that can be used to 'skip' the grind of melding.

Right now, it takes forever to unlock, yes, I agree. I don't have a vindicator, or a minotaur (mostly because I don't care to get either, but that's a bit beside the point). I do however have a tank with a 19 aug, and multiple tanks with multiple higher level modules.

[hypevosa]

Hi people, I've been gone forever, and honestly, this is the reason. While I liked grid alot, once 3 tanks came out and I couldn't for the life of me get enough melding going on to get them after a few weeks, I just threw in the towel. It's not a bad thing to have stuff that takes time to get, it's not, but when you start compounding time sinks like grid seems to be doing right now, you scare off people like me who just are in it for the fun. Dicking around in the new tanks was my fun factor for this game - so once that was gone, I had to leave too :\

[Crunch]

I tend to agree about the large time investment required to unlock/level/aug/mod tanks. It's a potentially huge investment and currently quite a grind.

I'm mostly curious about what the game will feel like once there are hordes of players decimating regions, though. Will augs/unlocks/mods/etc eventually drop so quickly that addressing this right now is moot? Will we eventually be thankful for content we cannot access immediately? I've been under the impression that the pacing will change greatly with an increase in players. So, while I agree that a great amount effort is required to advance our favorite tanks, I'm not really too worried about it yet.

Hype, if you need help with unlocks, I can give you a hand.

[Kelsoo]

This has been my greatest problem with the game. Well in some ways. The biggest issue I have had is the melding system, which I feel still isn't complete. And I have very little ideas on what exactly to do about it.

This is a complex problem indeed, in fact a problem that has made me want to avoid playing if I'm quite honest. Because the whole game feels like a grind, and not the fun kind that breaths fresh air into your lungs, it just feels like grinding is the game.

As of now the two biggest gripes with what you bring up are.

A). Leveling up past around 30. It just takes much much time, and it is something I just don't have the time to do now. Especially as there is no real reason to. Why would I spend much of my time leveling a tank and then hoping just praying to rngjesus that eventually I get a mod for that tank, a mod that I probably won't even notice and beyond that; hope that when I do get that mod the rng blesses me with it being a useful effect.

But that is delving more into the issue with mods which I don't care as much as the issue with leveling. After level 30 it just feels like, why? In fact I rarely pay attention to levels because they just don't interest me or seem to really have any benefit. At all.

And now you have the problem with giving "pro" players to much of an advantage. If rob still plans on following one of what seemed to be this games foundations, it would be making newer players be just as useful or be able to join the action at the least, with the more hardened and experienced players. Which as of now any new player is pretty useless as a result of such low speed but that is (usually) fixed in about twenty minutes if they can get some speed prisms.

The problem I have is not that I want modules to have more power. It's that I feel trying to level a tank just in the hopes that I get one for it takes to long, and even then doesn't feel like it is a pay off. So really it is a problem with leveling just having no substance to it as of now.

Here is what my biggest problem is.

B). The tank unlock system. Before tanks took a while to unlock, not to long, especially if you were really just working at them, but at this point it is really just ridiculous. Not only do they suck out huge amounts of time, its the fact that they feel more like goals instead of breaths of fresh air to try something new and neat. And the problem there is once people unlock all the tanks they might (my opinion) feel like they've experienced basically what Grid12 has to offer. They might feel as most incentive to play has been lost as there really is nothing to work for after that.

Sure you may have people who work for augs, but that will be a select few, and eventually they will max out at whatever augs they want. Say 10's on all tanks. The fact is, without something for players to work towards, that they feel will make a difference in their play, I highly doubt you will get a permanent playerbase. (my opinion)

One of the reasons I think Realm worked was because you had death that took everything away, while yes this drove many players away, it also was somewhat of a drug for players to stick around to rebuild their char's, which they knew would make a massive difference. Where as here the only thing I see making a difference is pulches, and tank unlocks to add variety.

Now this may not be a problem as more and more tanks come giving us many more options for play styles... so long as either the melding system is tweaked or tank unlocks never go past 22. By then you may have created so many different play styles that people will always be able to get enough of a break between tanks to warrant wanting to stay and be able to have that sense of discovery every time they come on.

But for now, the tank take just much much too long to get to. And I have a problem many people don't have that kind of time to waste literally hours on just grinding. Some do, but time certainly isn't something everyone has, and for the people who do have that kind of time, how many of them are going to willing to stay after unlocking every single tank? Of course every game has the point where players will feel satisfied. It's about how long and how much players will want to spend to get there.

[hypevosa]

To offer what I'd like to see:

No melding beyond level 15 for tanks specifically

separate tanks into types so you can fit all current and future tanks into those categories. (Attack, defense, support, Specialty)

Or at least until there's a hundred people at all times such that getting a level 20 tank unlock won't take eons of careful marketplace monitoring and grinding.

[fire]

lol, it takes like an hour to get a level 15 tank...and it took me maybe a week of grinding to get a 20 tank, playing ~ 3 or 4 hours a day.

[Kelsoo]

Nov 2, 2013 17:03:58 GMT -5 fire said:

lol, it takes like an hour to get a level 15 tank...and it took me maybe a week of grinding to get a 20 tank, playing ~ 3 or 4 hours a day.

Not everyone has 3 to 4 hours a day to spend on this game, or even games in general. On top of that, RNG.

[gingerbear]

Nov 2, 2013 17:03:58 GMT -5 fire said:

lol, it takes like an hour to get a level 15 tank...and it took me maybe a week of grinding to get a 20 tank, playing ~ 3 or 4 hours a day.

Yes, and for example I can mess around in Astroflux or LoL 3-4 hours and still feel entertained, while not so in Grid. Probably that's why I'm not that much on lately. :/

Actually, the point I'm trying to make here is what if the problem is not "tank unlocks take too long to get", but "the percieved time of getting those tank unlocks is too long". Which of course translates into "it feels like senseless grinding".

I appreciate that augments and modules do not add much to the overall tank power, thus keeping veterans and news about the same level, but it also kind of shuts down the sense of progression. I mean, it is cool to grind for more storage, but as soon as you get to about 18, then you can mostly meld whatever you need, and you soon realize you don't actually need those augments that much. What else? You can level up tanks individually, but then again, it only opens you some slots which you can fill with some modules... that, again, are not really a neccesity. So what's left? How can you feel you have truly progressed somewhere? As of the moment, it is by having all the tanks. Which makes one pay a little bit of more attention in hunting down the unlocks, or working harder to get them.

And what is the result? When finally one gets a new tank, it turns out to be kind of meh. Actually, it's an OK tank, but it just does not live up to the expectations one has after having put all that effort in getting it. And even instinctively, if tanks have levels and have an arbitrary order in which you can get them, you would expect some kind of progression. Whereas the key balancing factor among tanks is that they have some kind of uniqueness and none of them much stronger than the other, seen from all the aspects of the gameplay. Which kind of contradicts the hierarchy in which the players are forced to obtain them.

I still say (and just as we have said many builds ago), that the unlock system needs to be redone. There have been many great suggestions, the general idea is to divide them into some kind of logical groups that can have an inner hierarchy (so the melding aspect remains), but these groups should not be 20 items long. Of course, it has to be a rewarding feeling getting a new tank, but I think it should be based on rarity, rather than levels. Let's say tanks are grouped in blue, green, and yellow colors. Green is your average common tank, drops from towers and mini bosses, you get them pretty soon as you are also getting the hang of the game. Blue tanks only drop from doing quests, but from most of those (a city reaching lvl 12, killing a sector boss/miniboss, convoy), so people are incentivized to do quests. And yellow ones exclusively drop from events that are deemed "hard", some of the hard convoys, zetas, etc. If the devs feel like having fun, they could even change these yellow tank drops on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, so players wouldn't feel obligated to fight a certain enemy to get a certain tank...

[Ood]

Just some additional comments.

Having 'levels' of tanks gives the impression that some tanks should be better than others (i.e. the higher level the better). We think of levels as in more traditional rpg/games as a progression from worse to better.
I know you (rob) have previously expressed distaste for a 'tree' schematic for tanks, but honestly it makes a great deal of sense, and allows for larger numbers of tanks to be made without resorting to the (rather bullshit idea of) multiple 'level 20' tank option.

Currently we already have a couple of tank 'families', that share many attributes, and some loose associations as well.

Corsair > Predator > Minotaur (Front shielders)
Silver > Mustang > Phantom > Wolverine > Fury > Vindi (All around attackers, all round sheilders)
Hornet > Spectre (snipers)
Hurricane > Paladin (Heal, disarmers)
Hercules > Kraken (bombers)
Avenger > Valkyre > Viking > wildfire (In your face damagers)
Cutty (all alone ): )
Trailblazer (also alone)

The best associations are at the top of the list, The Predator is essentially a Corsair MKII, and the Minotaur is the MKIII model. No they aren't exactly the same, but they share a great deal of the same attributes.

If tank unlocks were distributed into so many groups, it'd be quite easy to get them all, yes, which would kill almost all progression that this game retains. However, there's perhaps a better way to do it, if you throw in a few other requirements.
The following tree shows a new 'tree' of tanks.


                            > Hurricane > Paladin   > ?       > ?
          Corsair           > Predator  > Minotaur  > ?       > ?
                           
                            > Avenger   > Hornet    > Spectre > ?
                                        > Wildfire  > ?       > ?

Silver >   Trailblazer (end)

                            > Valkyre   > Viking    > ?       > ?
                                                    > Cutlass > ?

          Mustang           > Phantom   > Wolverine > Fury    > Vindi
                            > Hercules  > Kraken    > ?       > ?

If the above makes sense, skip this bit... if not, here's a text explanation:
Silver to corsair, trailblazer, or mustang. Corsair to hurricane, predator, or avenger. Hurricane to paladin to ? to ?. Predator to Minotaur to ? to ?. Avenger to Hornet or wildfire. Hornet to spectre to ?. Wildfire to ? to ?. Mustang to Valkyre, phantom, or hercules. Valkyre to viking. Viking to ? or Cutlass. ? (post viking) to ?. Cutlass to ?. Phantom to wolverine to fury to vindi. Hercules to Kraken to ? to ?.

Expansions and amendments on the fly are certainly possible
So, how would you differentiate branches when melding? You wouldn't. Tank unlocks would lose their 'level' designation (perhaps a large problem for the market), and when melding something at the beginning of a branch (like 2 corsairs for example), you would recieve a random unlock of one of the pathways following.

Additionally, a few other things would need to happen, a major scaleback in the amount (and 'level') of tank unlocks. Make them 'rare' drops on small structures, somewhat rare on mediums, uncommon on larges, common on patrols and subs, and frequent on convoys and commanders.
Caches and town upgrades would then give augments instead of tanks (you'd get tanks for clearing structures within these) with rare chances for mods.

Next, if the tree cannot be expanded quickly enough, or if essentially 6 (though more could certainly be made) 'levels' of tank become standard and too quickly obtained, the meld conditions could be increased/expanded into more of a 'craft' situation. So that, for example going from a phantom to a wolverine requires 2 phantom unlocks and 2 shield augments level X or higher. Or to go from a viking to the next, you could bias the rng towards a cutty by melding 3 vikings, a damage augment, and a cd augment.

[amitp]

Nov 4, 2013 10:39:06 GMT -5 gingerbear said:

I appreciate that augments and modules do not add much to the overall tank power, thus keeping veterans and news about the same level, but it also kind of shuts down the sense of progression.

I think this is one of the biggest risks. Note that the same design principle was stated for RotMG, where it was abandoned.

Progression is “felt” when each increase is meaningful. The brain works on a logarithmic scale. To get meaningful increases, I believe you need the power curve to be exponential. Grid12's increases are the opposite. So I get to a “this is good enough” point and I don't feel like going from 120% to 120.5% matters to me.

An exponential power curve seems incompatible with keeping veterans and new players near each other. You have to compress the magnitude space. When done on CDs, it causes audio artifacts. See the article Compression is killing your music. In photography, it's “HDR”. Yeah, you can get some cool stuff, but it's compressing a large dynamic range into a small one, and that will never be completely satisfying.

The question is whether you need a sense of individual progression from an exponential power curve. Grid12 is an experiment in trying alternatives. Permadeath is one approach; it resets your power back to near the beginning of the curve so that you replay the middle range over and over instead of getting stuck at the high end. (I think RotMG didn't have enough permadeath.) Guild Wars 1 had a “broad not deep” approach, where you collect skill cards and then you're learning new combinations of skills (= grid12 triggers). Trading sort of ruins that feeling, because you no longer are learning what you have, but instead going out to pick an “optimal” card deck based on what you read on a wiki. Grid12 has some progression per class, so it sort of gets reset like permadeath when you get a new tank and have to level it up. Having rewards that are specific to a world or server might be interesting too.

I don't know what the answer is. Grid12 is an experiment. Rob can do experiments in game design that the big guys can't or won't. It's cool to see. At some point, if nothing works with this design principle, it may be worth questioning/changing it.

[gingerbear]

Well, I'm not suggesting that there should be a progression in the classic sense (be it a logarithmic scale or not), but that it appears to me that right now there is just seemingly none. Which is not a bad thing in itself - it just makes the game less compelling, as progressing is a "natural" aspect.

I think the "broad not deep" approach could work here. This would require a lot and lot more tanks / triggers though, which obviously would require the rethinking / reimplementation of the tank (unlock) system, which is the topic here.

Or maybe the source of the problem lies elsewhere, maybe just the other things are not yet interesting enough so we have enough time to overthink things like unlocks. Ood has posted a good feedback thread which might also provide some partial soultion.

[Duco]

Nov 4, 2013 18:56:58 GMT -5 amitp said:

Nov 4, 2013 10:39:06 GMT -5 gingerbear said:

I appreciate that augments and modules do not add much to the overall tank power, thus keeping veterans and news about the same level, but it also kind of shuts down the sense of progression.

I think this is one of the biggest risks. Note that the same design principle was stated for RotMG, where it was abandoned.

Progression is “felt” when each increase is meaningful. The brain works on a logarithmic scale. To get meaningful increases, I believe you need the power curve to be exponential. Grid12's increases are the opposite. So I get to a “this is good enough” point and I don't feel like going from 120% to 120.5% matters to me.

An exponential power curve seems incompatible with keeping veterans and new players near each other. You have to compress the magnitude space. When done on CDs, it causes audio artifacts. See the article Compression is killing your music. In photography, it's “HDR”. Yeah, you can get some cool stuff, but it's compressing a large dynamic range into a small one, and that will never be completely satisfying.

The question is whether you need a sense of individual progression from an exponential power curve. Grid12 is an experiment in trying alternatives. Permadeath is one approach; it resets your power back to near the beginning of the curve so that you replay the middle range over and over instead of getting stuck at the high end. (I think RotMG didn't have enough permadeath.) Guild Wars 1 had a “broad not deep” approach, where you collect skill cards and then you're learning new combinations of skills (= grid12 triggers). Trading sort of ruins that feeling, because you no longer are learning what you have, but instead going out to pick an “optimal” card deck based on what you read on a wiki. Grid12 has some progression per class, so it sort of gets reset like permadeath when you get a new tank and have to level it up. Having rewards that are specific to a world or server might be interesting too.

I don't know what the answer is. Grid12 is an experiment. Rob can do experiments in game design that the big guys can't or won't. It's cool to see. At some point, if nothing works with this design principle, it may be worth questioning/changing it.

We can have something useless to show off as progression.

[rob]

Hey guys,

Even though it's negative, I appreciate this feedback. I don't promise to do what you want, but I will definitely take your opinions into account.

As Amit says, Grid12's progression system is an experiment that is not guaranteed to work. I expect that certain things will need adjustment or fail outright. If I can't make the system work, I can fall back to a traditional exponential power curve and level-appropriate zones as seen in WoW, RotMG and every other PvE game ever.

Would it help if others could see your progress? Unlocked tanks, augment levels, modules, etc?