Thoughts about CA (Feedback&Suggestions)

[hi21hallo]

Dear Valofe Stuff,

this is a collection of ideas and thoughts about the game. About what Combat Arms was, what it is. About what made players to play it and what will players make to play it.

To the beginning I want you to know who I am and from which perspective I judge.
The probably most important to know: I am a 20 year old Ego-Shooter fan and I have been playing Combat Arms since my 13th birthday.
It was the first real computer game I started playing with and i never stopped, because no matter what I allways loved it.
But looking back outta my present perspective I think can tell you a lot of stuff what went wrong and what you could do better.
To keep this clear i sturctured my concerns in 3 main parts, but take a look by yourself

1. Part Gamebased

• Maps:
  Honestly this is the most important game for a Ego-Shooter. No matter how great a Ego-Shooter is from the engine or the playerbase... When the maps are shit, you cant play the game for long.
  As a negative example I am mentioning two games: Warmode and Blacksquad. Brilliant games (especially BS will be a big competitor you have to face regarding gameplay), but no way i can play them longer as 4 hours per week because i am so bored of that maps!
  Maps in Combat Arms are currently - okay. I made a few rework-suggestions in the old forum which i´ll repost here too. (Grave Digger, PiazzaCosta Recon)
  Most are constructed thoughtfull and dont get boring that fast. And an other important thing about it: there are many different you can go for. I really hope this will stay so.
  Also a good thing under this point is bringing in players in the development of maps.
  Why? Because your player know best what they like. They are playing your game partly longer than you own it and have brilliant ideas for the game to keep it alive, because they want to play Combat Arms. Best sample is OilRig which became one of the favourite maps in CA ~ created by a player out passion.
  They will only switch to other games if Combat Arms become unplayable or to boring.
  And including player in the developement of maps can be done pretty easy by just bringing a mapcontest to life or one per year or even an ongoing where players can hand in ideas and sketches.
  The best are choosen by a vote of the community and yourself.
  Even easier for you and us would it be if you provide a tool to create Combat Arms maps.
  I personally would even go further than just one mapcontest per year and would integrate a "Community Workshop" system where you can choose in Custom Rooms or also in the Matchmaking "Community Maps" and play than on randomly choosen maps created by players and uploaded to your servers.
  In the begin of each game you have to download the map first but it gets automatically deleted when the map expires (it could be expire for example when the map only gets bad votes or banned by an admin). At the end of every game you can vote how mutch you enjoyed the map and if you want to have it be integrated as normal map.
  When the ammount of Community Maps reaches a limit than or maybe a "season" expires the most voted maps get permanent integrated in Combat Arms.
  This would involve the player sustainable in the gamedevelopment what will make CA more popular in long-term.
• Modes:
  I pity the remove of some Mode such as "Seize and Secure" and "Bombin Run" or the drop of work at new modes as "Hounted". Variety makes the game more interesting and through that longer playable in my oppinion.
  I can understand putting the focus into the main shooter game modes, but keep in mind that a unique mode makes the game unique too.
  My main concern under this point is, that through Combat Arms Reloaded (the interface and new lobbyfunktion) all the various modes lose player because you don´t just stumble over a gamemode you rarly play and in Matchmaking a random mode option isn´t available.
• Weapons:
  What makes CA to CA? Right the weapon diversity for example, so as Combat Arms is promoted in the official trailer. But release several "different" version of one gun just with other paint, or whatever, doesn´t count.
  We want truly different weapons and not only a few every year. As soon as you are familiar with the game and took over completly, I´d say one or even two completly different weapon models (no matter if a brand new AR, MG or Knife or a new Helmet or Vest) per month are a good target.
  Thats something, even though it sounds not much, makes the game interesting in long term. Knowing that there is something in the next month you can be excited about. Trying out completly new stuff, having fun.
  And btw. new weapons or gear dont have to be better "in use" than older stuff check out this post if you wan´t to experience what I mean: https://forums.valofe.com/forum/comb...ns-for-weapons.
  If you really change that and you dont want to expant the existing skins for all weapons you can set a restriction for them so they can only be used for either one specific weapon, a few weapons e.g. the Nemexis skins or packages as Rocco´s... (than they´d to be multiple equipabel)
  or you just keep the old weapon and only slightly edit it so that no other skin can be equipped like that way:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Why´d be reasonable i´ll state later on under the point prestige.
• Levels:
  After the unlock of all weapons for all ranks leveling doesn´t pay out. The rewards are non-spectacular and nearly irrelevant in my oppinion. I dont have something specific i can come up with how to make it better, but maybe more rare random loot and permanent stuff at the highest ranks would do it.
  Also nice would be to see something like the prestige skins for the default weapons in old CA again. I am talking about: professional, veteran, elite, champion skins for the knife, the pistol, rifle so as cap and backpack. Honestly I knew nearly noone had them equipped but it was always a nice prestigestuff / nice-to-have. (And under us the CiC-Backpack doesn´t do it it just looks ugly af. Be more creative and badass!)
  An other suggestion is that you should gain a permanent GP-multiplier for reaching BG (Lev. 47 i think it is) lets say 1.5x GP earned through games and by reaching the highest rank gain a permanent 2x GP-muliplier. Just reading that causes only the question why,
  but it makes sense when you consider that the target from leveling changes than to collecting money for buying for special gear from "loot"-boxes etc.
• Gamerooms:
  Gamerooms are like small Coffeebars. A place where people meet, get in touth and talk. AND IF YOU HAVE TO LEAVE THEM ONLY BECAUSE YOU WANT TO CHANGE EQUIPMENT THATS SHIT! Honestly there is soo mutch space on the right side of the screen inside the lobby.
  It should be so easy to just open up the store window on that side! We dont necessarily need to see our character on the left...
  Also you should finde the gamerooms you care about more easy. Right now as far as i know you cant see the full rooms?! When my friends are inside one or i just found a map and mode i like and i want to join and wait for someone to leave how should i do that right now???
  What was always important for the community is to set rules for a gameroom. You can´t do that right now thats a big miss!
  Nexon already had a nice funktion implemented where you were able to bann single weapons (yes it wasn´t perfect but something), i´d wish for a more worked out funktion like that where you can also bann weapon groups as e.g. all M416 Variants and so on...
  Especially since you cant name the room right now, you can´t set custom rules in any way. That was one way for players to find competitors who liked to challange them under special restrictions.
• Matchmaking:
  Matchmaking is a good feature but most of the CA player didn´t wanted it for the normal casual playing. Its great for something like ranked, but in normal the way the matchmaking works is to intransparent and doesn´t really seem to work at all.
  Also you should be able to see a few stats about matchmaking itself, regarding how many player are currently playing, how many are currently searching for a game.

to be continued...

[hi21hallo]

2. Part Player-/ Communitybased
Preserve a good community is essential for a game, because it makes so huge difference when you play with people who are more than online-trolls and don´t just throw with shit around them.
If you manage that, you will automatically get more players to play Combat Arms. Players will recommend the game rather to others and when they start playing and they feel appreciated in the community, they will also stay.
Of course it is hard to archieve because everyone got bad days and not everyone can keep a polite sozial interaction if he feels insulted or offended.
But I think there are indeed things which passivly leads to that goal.

• Prestige/ Competition:
  Between players is allways a competition. To keep it sports-man-like you shouldn´t bomb the game incomparable gear, weapons, unbalanced maps and so on. All should be balanced as far as possible.
  Slightly unbalincing is good too because player can proof themselves by playing with less powerful weapons against stronger armed players.
  Gaining rare weapons or special event stuff with limited avaiability give the the player the possiblility to gain prestige that through.
  Imo there should be some stuff you only can gain through taking part in special events, log-in-events and also as reward for challanges. But this stuff should be truly unique. Because its not possible for everyone to have such stuff it shouldn´t give a to special advantage.
  To bring up the topic skins from before again: It should be self-explaning that making weapon skins not as easy accessable as they are right now makes them rare and wanted.
  Selling them with various probabilities through random boxes which you also can buy for an appropriate ammount of GP would not only increase the prestige you can gain by skins but also the will to play longer in longterm because you allways got something you can play for.
• Well-being/ Comfort:
  Players like to be included in developments of the game. Of course it makes also sense for you to receive the feedback and suggestions because "we" are your customers and fitting the customers needs is obviously expedient.
  But be aware: Its still you game and you give the basic direction. There are for sure hundreds different oppinions about how the game should be.
  But most of them are just of small groups and its up to you to sort them out because if you react to them you will have plenty upset people on the other side.
  
  An other thing is just simply giving the player the feeling he is wellcome. This can be reached very easily through birthday presents for expamle. Everyone stated a birthday when he signed up and no matter if its true or not,
  it would be such a nice gesture. Maybe just a simple special "BirthdayPresentLootBox" or even a few selected items tailored to the individual playstyle choosen by an algorithm.
  I even think it would be nice to implement a small birthday tag which gets displayed in the friendlist.
  
  Megaphone - they should be reintigrated. I know there were spammed and abused and to prevent that they cant be selled for cheap GP, but I can tell you I miss them and I am not the only one.
  It was the best thing for Clan/-member search and also to attract people for selforganized events which encourage the community strongly.
  
  What also increases the comfort is adaptivity. When the game fits to other programs so as video capture programs (recording without framedrops).
  Especially Overlays should be useable! Not everyone use them all the time, but it really sucks if you have to Tab out only because the game doesn´t support stuff like that.
  Also something like Razer Chroma support or something with similar devices. I made a suggestion over here: Razer Chroma Support.
  A discord server is already existing, thats great but Discord also allowes more features (check it out over here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ss-IvNjl7JQ) and i´d really love to see that integrated.
  Maybe just what kind of game MM normal or ranked, lobby, ... so as gamemode would already be great.
  In my eyes adaptivity stands for the future and a game what supports as much 3rd party programs (hacks and macro´s excluded of course) as possible has something far beyond other games.
• Gifting function:
  I know this subject is dangerous, because of abusement through players who raise a secound account only because you can earn more money in the beginning levels. And of course even more because of Scammers.
  Despite I am for a unlimited gifting funktion, because in my view it strengthen the community through giving the opportunity to help each other out.
  
  3. Part Moneybased
  We all are human and we are well aware that you as Valofe are a commercial enterprises that needs to achive revenues and cover the expenses. But there are smart ways to do that and not so smart ways.
  I am sure you already got a schedule that for, despite i want to share my ideas in this point because even though everyone should know that already, obviously barly anyone respect it.
  
  Integrating new stuff which is stronger or better than the existing gears and weapon is one way. But that way is just nearsighted thoughtthrough. Its the worst thing you can do to the community and players.
  Since the power is limited (or at least should be ) at a certain point you have to weaken the stuff again and in the end noone is happy about it...
  
  I won´t consider charging money for optics or the same stuff you can unlock by normal playing and so on. Thats allright.
  
  A more important thing for me is product placement. I want to acquit it from the badmouthing. It is really no big deal to got advertising contracts!!! As long as it is in a appropriate way!!! (In a Shooter we face the problem who want to promote his product in such a game but i am sure there are a lot of companies with gamers as main costumers)
  Not okay would be: Paintings all over the wall and over every weapon in the game.
  Whereas completly fine: drinks machines with labels of for example energy drink producer, objects like computer or servers labeled with electronic companies and maybe even on a new map labeled construction equipment.
  My appeal: be creative, contact other companies, requests doesn´t cost more than a few time. Making money through advertising is no crime, as long as its done smooth and clever.
  
  Also an more interesting idea is integrating a small crypto-miner as it is already often used in normal internet websites.
  But do it thoughtfull and right. This could cause lags by players with worse pc configurations, so you have to inform the player about the crypto-miner in the background and best also give him the chance to adjust the amount of threats which are used for crypto-mining to a minimum of 2 for example to avoid lags. Or only run him while players are in the Lobby.
  I don´t know what others say about that, but in my personal oppinion this is a justified, smooth and acceptable way how you can earn money, while keeping the game free to play.

I dind´t wrote it all at once so I hope I didn´t forgot to finish a sentence or wrote to mutch confusing...
greets and thanks for the attention

Skag aka BetaBiest

[SoulhunterIT]

You spent a lot of time to write this thread and I spent a lot of time to read it ... good ideas, I agree with them.

[hi21hallo]

Thanks a lot glad to hear someone really made the effort