Warrior General Games

I've got some experience in GLB and just came back to GLB2. For those that don't know, I'm the guy who wrote this bank in the beginning:

http://www.mpogd.com/news/?ID=3734

I wasn't asked to write it by anyone, my wife and I were working for a gaming magazine and I chose this game to review. I liked it for a lot of reasons, mainly it appealed to my gaming style. I like to buy Madden not because I find the game play to be challenging or revolutionary. I like to take a terrible team, move it to another city and build it into an empire by drafting, etc. The original GLB appealed to that very much.

I'm also the GM of a rather large and very well established gaming guild. We played heavy in GLB for two years before stopping (I honestly don't recall why). During the years of not playing I can honestly say I don't ever recall a "hey come back to GLB" email being sent to me or my guild. I don't remember seeing a "see what's changed" campaign being done to bring old players back. I've never seen any kind of ad being placed on any of the popular gaming sites like IGN, MMORPG, etc.

As an established gamer, a veteran of GLB and a player new to GLB2, here are my rookie season observations:

1. As a new player coming into GLB, I found the forums to be somewhat helpful in regards to how to build a character. Once I researched a lot, and came up with a plan on how to build a team I felt confident in my choices. What I didn’t know is that these “guides” were mainly player created and there was quite a bit of guesswork in them. There should be a better guide for new players from the community team for Warrior General.

2. One thing I loved about the old GLB was the stadium customization options. Why that got shelved is a big question mark for me. Building a team from the ground up was a fun part of the game and something to talk about on “off days” in between games. In this iteration, salaries mean nothing really. Why did all of that get removed?

3. Why is there a GLB1 and a GLB2 title? Why not just deprecate GLB1 and combine the titles? I can assure you, even though the “beta” tag on these games has been an ongoing joke amongst the folks I talk to who have played or still do. It’s a big turn off for other who don’t want to spend money on a “beta”. You’ve been building the game for 7+ years now, get rid of “beta”.

4. As much as I hate to take business from someone, the stuff in GLB2Scout should be in GLB. It’s a phenomenal application and really is an advantage to anyone who uses it. You all should buy it from him and add it as a premium account option or flex purchase.

5. “Rookie” league should be for rookies. Too many coaches and owners with years of experience under their belts in the rookie league. I understand the player base is kinda low right now and people are bored but if I was a brand new player who didn’t spend money on a third party program and my first rookie game was a 58-0 drubbing from a rookie owner who has 800+ wins and all he did was run the same play over and over I would call the game broken and move on. Rookie should be for rookies. Put a level cap on rookie players, simplify the play calling and let it be training wheels GLB. Then force the teams up to the next level and gradually increase the difficulty. Veteran coaches shouldn’t be involved in rookie leagues.

6. There needs to be more player customization options. I know that the game sim is way better than the dots we had. I think that should stay the same as it is now because I think changing it is more dev work that these guys want to do. That being said, there could be more done to change the paper doll appearance of the player. The items don’t need to be stat items like there were in GLB, they could be cosmetic. Though stat items are always a draw in MMOs.


Long post I know…

Summary is this, GLB was a helluva game when it started. Very basic but very appealing. There was a TON of forum activity, trash talk, theory crafting, team pride and community engagement. I see some big improvements in this new version but I see a lot of things that would make a new player not want to try it or not try it for very long.

They REALLY need to utilize the tactics more. Several positions have tactics that are useless or have no useful tactics at all. I mean carrying style for an O-Lineman? Really? How about a blocking tactic like power or tech?

btw its not our job to worry about this. GLB should have thought about this before they made another football sim. Seems like Yahoo is all they could come up with.

I don't get the disconnect

If CD/WG knows exactly why GLB/GLB2 is failing, then why not do something about it?

Originally posted by Corndog
Less than a tenth of a percent log in days later to see how their player did in a game, let alone get mad that they "didn't go for it on 4th and 8" and quit. The overwhelming majority of new users log in, make a player, realize there's nothing to do, then forget about about the game.
http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/forum/thread/5244670?page=3#49200391

Originally posted by Corndog
It's easy to think that issues you have are issues that everyone has, and mask it as some kind of "save the game" campaign, but making players fall down less isn't going to change the fact that 999 out of 1000 new users leave before they see their players fall down.
http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/forum/thread/5244670?page=3#49200421

So... make something for agents to do?

How about mini games, instead of automatic skill points? Make the mini games the default and then unlock auto-skill points via achievement.

To reduce bad experiences of new players and bad owners/coordinators, make coordinating jobs a requirement for team ownership. The game already tracks coaching record.

Make a league that has all CPU players only, and the only objective is to coordinate teams.

Get agents more invested in the players they create. Award Flex or Reward points for creating accounts in twitter/FB of their player. People make stupid stuff for their pets, so this shouldn't be any different.

===

Then there's some game play stuff that gets glossed over.

Originally posted by Corndog
"Less inept rookies" translates to skills having less of an impact.

If Rookies with no skills in catching can reliably catch, why would you ever spend points in catching when you can spend it in running faster? An artificial boost to rookies that makes them better creates a situation where your player gets worse over time instead of better, which I'm not sure is the greatest feeling either, as well as being confusing. Being able to catch every pass with 20 catching then suddenly not being able to catch anything after you hit Sophomore would be a confusing situation for a new player.
http://glb2.warriorgeneral.com/game/forum/thread/5244670?page=4#49200475

There's fairly simple solutions to this.

#1 Change the visuals of a player for every league he advances to better represent the sim changes. It's completely normal for a player who was awesome in city flag football leagues to suck in high school because of the structure change. It's common for top High School prospects to not pan out in college. Avoiding draft busts is a large part of the job of an NFL GM.

In the case of this game (Using your example) 20 catching is just getting started, and in the first season 30s is pretty good, and 50s is awesome, but 80s in unobtainable. So make the SP bars go from maybe 5 to 60 using bigger slices, instead of keeping the current 1 to 100 visuals the whole way.

You could also code in some soft caps, for the sake of logic. For example, it isn't logical to have 95 Catch in Traffic with 12 in Receiving Hands. So force players to spread out points to unlock higher caps. Those restrictions could go away as the game progresses season to season.

You could also make it a big deal when a player completes a tier. Create a visual, triggered on log-in, that let's an agent know his player has accomplished something that (apparently) 999 out of 1000 people didn't do--complete a career tier.

It might be realistic for people to hone their craft over years to become better at it. But that concept doesn't hold up well in games played for entertainment.

===

however, the bottom line when it comes to retaining players is always going to be the entertainment per dollar ratio. WG seems dead set against adjusting the dollar side of the equation, so the entertainment value has to go up. That however requires work, that WG doesn't seem like it's interested in doing. Dropping the cost per player would be easy.

Originally posted by Corndog

"Less inept rookies" translates to skills having less of an impact.

If Rookies with no skills in catching can reliably catch, why would you ever spend points in catching when you can spend it in running faster? An artificial boost to rookies that makes them better creates a situation where your player gets worse over time instead of better, which I'm not sure is the greatest feeling either, as well as being confusing. Being able to catch every pass with 20 catching then suddenly not being able to catch anything after you hit Sophomore would be a confusing situation for a new player.

Didn't notice this post earlier.

If you do a Tiered Cap System for RNG based skills, you force the players to spend points in those skills, but you also dramatically reduce the number of drops, bad passes, ect. What that does is it makes the sim more about the humans planning for it, and less about coin flips. Your player base desires more control over the outcome of the sim. This fulfills that.

How do you figure players get worse over time? That doesn't even make sense. If you tier cap the RNG skills, then put in a tiered expense system for the physical skills - and by that I mean implement a soft cap at each tier group. Allow agents to spend beyond the soft cap, but make the cost high. Players will progressively get strong and faster as they get "older." There's really no denying that.

As for the inability to catch at the start of the next tier, use your imagination - it is a video game. The ball gets bigger when you advance from Rookie to Sophomore so it takes the players time to strengthen their hands to adapt to the new ball.

I think it is a bit much to change the structure of catching % around to fit the tiers. That is a change to has huge consequences to the game and makes zone defense unplayable all together in the early tiers. Don't think they want that.

The top QB's in rookie are throwing for about 50%. The top QB's in veteran are completing 55-60%. That seems like a pretty good medium to ask for.

The part that makes the drops so much more frustrating is that generally your completed passes come with the player immediately falling down which doesn't translate to a realistic football world.

Originally posted by bhall43
I think it is a bit much to change the structure of catching % around to fit the tiers. That is a change to has huge consequences to the game and makes zone defense unplayable all together in the early tiers. Don't think they want that.

The top QB's in rookie are throwing for about 50%. The top QB's in veteran are completing 55-60%. That seems like a pretty good medium to ask for.

The part that makes the drops so much more frustrating is that generally your completed passes come with the player immediately falling down which doesn't translate to a realistic football world.

Read what you just wrote tho. The Top QB's in Rookie...

Look at the bottom. The guys that just started playing the game and tried it out, and watch their receivers drop 15+ passes in a game - those are the guys this thread is aimed at. How do you keep those players interested. The top guys are on 1-2 Agent run teams who have been playing for years and spec'ed their team to a certain style. Certaintly not the focus on this thread.

Originally posted by PhireHawk
Read what you just wrote tho. The Top QB's in Rookie...

Look at the bottom. The guys that just started playing the game and tried it out, and watch their receivers drop 15+ passes in a game - those are the guys this thread is aimed at. How do you keep those players interested. The top guys are on 1-2 Agent run teams who have been playing for years and spec'ed their team to a certain style. Certaintly not the focus on this thread.

The bottom is full of bad play calling and/or bad builds. Guys are gonna be good and guys are gonna be bad. If we want joe schmo to walk into the game and have a superstar top HoF player on a bad team you just have to throw out the building process all together and create a whole new game where everyone is on the exact same level and it is mere play calling stating whether the player is good/bad.

Originally posted by bhall43
The bottom is full of bad play calling and/or bad builds. Guys are gonna be good and guys are gonna be bad. If we want joe schmo to walk into the game and have a superstar top HoF player on a bad team you just have to throw out the building process all together and create a whole new game where everyone is on the exact same level and it is mere play calling stating whether the player is good/bad.

Right, so how again does "Sorry your build is bad, QQ more newb" help grow the player base?

My suggestion isn't perfect, but it at least tries something outside the box and you know what - that might be what this game needs. Because the standard answer hasn't really helped grow the community.

Just sayin...

Right there is the problem. These guys aren't seeking out help in the forums or trying to improve their player. They just want their player to be automatically good.

You say "sorry your build is bad".

I ask myself "wow, 15 drops in that game! how can i improve on that?"

step one, is it my WR, my QB, or both?

QB Pass tech could probably use some work. Conditioning is a bit low.
WR Rec Hands could use work. CIT could use work. Am i getting KL? GRip could use work. conditioning probably could be improved.

What if i am doing all i can in those categories? Maybe it is the playcalling. Let's look at what other teams are doing and see why they are doing it.

Maybe i just need to raise consistency on everyone?

Ask questions, get help. Hope for CDog to give more workable plays.

Most people just say "Wow this game is lame."

And then quit or go inactive.

which is what i would be saying if all these skill points meant nothing because my player catches 75% of his targets with 10 hands.

Making most plays useable and adding new ones is the best way to retain new agents and keep older players here IMO.

Right now I probably only use 25% of passing plays and 10% of the screens rookie-vet. That needs to change.