I didn’t say the “game is dying” - I said if they don’t get new players, the game will die. Hardly a bold statement, since anyone can draw the conclusion, even if they’ve never played the game before - since it’s true of EVERY game. There are few live service games out there that can survive long-term w/out new players spending money.
And correct me if I’m wrong - DF made a rather large and distinct change to the game 7 months ago. They’ve introduced bots and continue to improve the AI. Those are not the actions of a game on the upswing. Again, I think their AI and bots are pretty good, and I’d far rather play with a few or even a lot of bots, than sit there staring at a queuing screen.
But none of the above are “bold statements”.
LOL. Did you even read the title of this thread? If I wanted to win all the time, regardless of my skill, I’d just go play low tier German! /smh
So have I. And I have stuck with the US team, exactly because I like a challenge. Even though it’s imbalanced b/c for whatever reason on the US server, the German team continues to bottom feed. It’s funny how the Russian, US, and Japanese don’t have the need to do bottom feed. Just the Germans, and apparently (based on comments from others on this thread) only on the US server.
In other games, there are carrot and stick actions taken by the designers so that, over time, the skilled players move on to other areas.
In an MMO, for instance, the areas would stop giving XP as the players gain levels, incentivizing new areas with XP and higher gear, and then, freeing up those mobs for newbies to kill and the cycle continues. I’ve seen PVP games where they give larger rewards for players killed that are higher or same level, and less and less rewards as the levels become further apart. So, the risk for the higher level person is a death by a lower one (losing stuff) whereas the lower one has almost no risk, and little to be gained by the veteran if they kill the newbie. Thus, the carrot and the stick for the veteran to not prey upon the newbie.
This game incentivizes veterans to prey on newbies and gives no stick penalizing them, nor any carrot to get them to move on.
While it’s better than it was six months ago due to the changes in the game - it still isn’t particularly fair to new players. (Note: I don’t consider myself one at this point, outside of learning a few maps I haven’t seen, etc.)
Veterans have more silver and experienced soldiers, earned points spent on research, silver for gun upgrades, mine upgrades, backpacks, leveled soldiers, flasks, upgraded weapons/tanks, etc etc.
Don’t even pretend to say it’s just about the veteran’s skill and experience. I get the feeling some veterans have no idea how newbies of this new game since December actually start out - or it’s just been so long, you’ve forgotten.
My point in all this is improving the game experience for all players. I’d like to know that with a constant influx of players, the game will be around when I too can look back on a couple of years of play.