GoB needs more active players - some ideas the devs should listen to!

edited September 2017 in The Game
Introduction
I bet most of all GoB players already noticed that the all in all number of players decreased over the years and continues decreasing. I dont know if the game will be dead in the near future but what i know is that playing GoB with just a few people gets boring and will lead active players leaving the game.

Background
I talked with some people about this topic and collected the most of the ideas which all have the same goal: Bringing (back) more people to play GoB. Many people including me really like this beautiful game and are sad about the few active players ):

Remark
This thread is not meant to point out mistakes people made. Please don't comment harassment and bad words! Instead start thinking about the topic and join the discussion! (: The things i wrote down are not all my own thoughts and are not complete (im not perfect :/). There maybe are some points i even don't like/agree with but i listed them up because that's how brainstorming works! The target group are the DEVS (@Hackerham @Excuse_Me, i don't know more, lol) so i really hope that they will read it... I structured the ideas based on four main topics:
  1. Skins
  2. Gameplay
  3. Advertising
  4. Moderation

1. Skins
  • Make skins less expensive.
  • Make some skins buyable with gold.
  • Some skins shall only be unlocked by reaching ranks/achievements (original thread: Home --> The Game --> An Idea for Skins)
  • Everyone who creates an account shall be rewarded with a skin (a choice between some comon skins)
  • Implement a trading system for skins.

2. Gameplay
  • Limit perk slots based on rank and/or in combination with some time restrictions (at rank a perk b can only be used c rounds and after that there is a cool down of d rounds)
  • Give constantly some information about the progress of the desktop client (specifications, screenshots, fancy stuff ;D) and focus on finishing it.
  • Making getting pluto easier (this is related to to price of skins) e.g. increase spawn rate, add another "mini game" to get pluto or increase daily reward.
  • Make the rank have a more important meaning (more things to unlock, see also Home --> The Game --> Feature Requests..)

3. Advertising
  • Pay some well known youtubers to play GoB in their videos (Let's play).
  • Making the main characters (e.g. standard skin) into plush toys and sold them at Toys R Us and places like that.
  • Targetting people who experienced the publication of bomberman (people in 20s and 30s).
  • Write some online articles about the game.

4. Moderation
  • Add a rule that a warn or a mute must be explained by mods (short but valid!)

There is one thing left..
..the problem is that everyone in the dev team seeks to have massive short term gains in profit
but they dont see that its the long term ones that gain them more..

I added this quote from a GoB player NOT to offend somone, i added it because it contains a great truth about strategic customer relation!
«13

Comments

  • The reason nothing has been done with skins is because Devs have been busy working on the funded updates, ( and it's also Importsnt to remember they have side projects, but try to invest as much time as they can into working on the TO-DO list.) I agree, something should be changed when it comes to skins, and it will. Remember the last time skins received a re-haul was a while ago ( again, devs are busy with the donated projects) however, skins are being worked on and I'm sure we can find something to work out

    Pluto happens almost every round ( I would be confident saying 1 Pluto within 5 rounds, easily) and the formula has been tweaked, ( the excact thread can be found but basically higher rank -> Pluto appearing more often on map)

    Moderation -
    Players who break these rules can be warned, muted in the game and/or banned on the forum. In extreme cases, a player can be banned from the game (denied access to it completely).

    To enforce these rules there are moderators. They do their best to make the chat a better place for all players. Let’s be grateful for their unpaid and often unpleasant work.

    If a moderator warned you or asked to stop doing some things, you must stop it immediately. If you disagree, you can discuss it with the moderator in private. Ignoring moderator's requests or publicly arguing about them leads to muting. A moderator may mute you without warning if breaking of rules is severe or you've been warned about it previously.

    If you do not understand why you have been muted, ask a moderator who did it to explain it in private message (for example, using Inbox on the forum). Give a moderator at least a week to reply. Do not create forum messages or topics for such questions, they will be deleted without further discussion.

    If even after you've talked to a moderator, you still do not understand why you were muted, you can contact one other moderator. It's best to contact the head moderator of the respective region. In your message, you must write in detail about how you've contacted the moderator who muted you. If your complaint does not contain such information, it shows that you don't read these rules, and your complaint will be ignored
    Anybody who is muted can inbox the moderator and they will explain why.

    A lot of these things are on the TODO list, but again. Fixing a big causing game crashes > adding some small reward for gaining a rank.

    I'll leave the rest to @Excuse_Me to answer!
  • Nice post! Easy to read and has raises a few good points. I'm looking forward to reading the different ideas and opinions.
  • 0x42 wrote:
    Everyone who creates an account shall be rewarded with a skin (a choice between some comon skins)
    Not sure if one has to register but there is already free skin selection -
  • edited September 2017

    Moderation -
    Players who break these rules can be warned, muted in the game and/or banned on the forum. In extreme cases, a player can be banned from the game (denied access to it completely).

    To enforce these rules there are moderators. They do their best to make the chat a better place for all players. Let’s be grateful for their unpaid and often unpleasant work.

    If a moderator warned you or asked to stop doing some things, you must stop it immediately. If you disagree, you can discuss it with the moderator in private. Ignoring moderator's requests or publicly arguing about them leads to muting. A moderator may mute you without warning if breaking of rules is severe or you've been warned about it previously.

    If you do not understand why you have been muted, ask a moderator who did it to explain it in private message (for example, using Inbox on the forum). Give a moderator at least a week to reply. Do not create forum messages or topics for such questions, they will be deleted without further discussion.

    If even after you've talked to a moderator, you still do not understand why you were muted, you can contact one other moderator. It's best to contact the head moderator of the respective region. In your message, you must write in detail about how you've contacted the moderator who muted you. If your complaint does not contain such information, it shows that you don't read these rules, and your complaint will be ignored
    Anybody who is muted can inbox the moderator and they will explain why.

    Thats not making the game more popular or "active" or whatev

    How bout y'all chill the buck out and stop making playas quit

    Your own immoderate moderation is more than moderately responsible for the mediocrity of GOB's ranks

    Stop chasing people off and act like you want users, and maybe more users will stay

    Liberalize the mod code of conduct is my vote.
  • edited September 2017
    Whoever decided US server should have the same map year round should be fired. Original bomber man switches maps between rounds. And I don't mean a new permutation of the green and grey map every single round. I mean different themed maps between rounds. I know you have them. You have snow maps. You have chinese/bamboo maps. Probably others. But for some stupid reason you use the green grass and grey blocks map EVERY single day, and every single round, on GOB year round (at least on US server; I don't go on other servers).

    Fix it!
  • edited September 2017
    If they could be so creative in the days of old bomber man games, surely GOB can do better than its constant green and grey maps meme in 2017!!!
  • @0x42 dont worry friend, I dont mind being quoted on those, I see a lot of yours, pwnyys, mine and a few others' ideas from the chat too hehe

    although I doubt anything will be done about those because they dont realize some of those ideas take very little effort

    in fact it takes no effort at all to do the 4th one, it is just that certain massive unmeasurable egos do not want it or want the game to improve :) i wont throw names in but they will know im talking about them
    Thanked by 2 BabyThanos 0x42
  • such a good idea.. i would add some too:
    PEOPLE paid for first boss project, but still its SO RARE! it appears daily 1-2 times AND always in the last 3 or less mins.. it would be awesome if those bosses appear in every 5th round and from the start or at least around 8 mins.

    long ago i got some EMail notification about GoB and in every notification i got collectable plutos. its like "Merry Xmas GoB player i hope u all the best and here is free 5 pluto as gift. wish u all the best and have fun in the future". it was a good idea and in the future it will be a good idea bcoz: ppl will get free pluto which give us NON PAYER FREE PLAYERS some fun and chances to get a freakin WAY TOO EXPENSIVE skin.. i play since 2013 or something like that and i have NO SKIN! nothing at all.. i would like to get 1 but i cant. so for free players getting free pluto is a huge help! ALSO! if ppl get notification they will click the link and play a few rounds. maybe even old players would come back if they see a notification..

    idea about maps : DELETE HALF OF THEM! lots of maps are crazy and UNPLAYABLE! some maps have huge black spaces. in those boring maps ppl cant find any opponents to fight against or friend to play with.. some maps have WAY TOO MUCH cement bricks which makes moving very slow.. give us back the old style maps!!!!!! give us those things where ppl can get blue bombs. give us back the places which is full with bombs. give us back that thing where muimui can do her endless chain. give us back those things where ppl can unlock a shield or a jatpack... for us (mostly non perker and free players) this new maps are crazy. ppl with perks have way too much advantage. in the old maps even noobs and newbies could get shield. but now free players dont get chance to stay alive and they get bored of the countless deaths and they dont come back to play again. fix it! old maps were more playable for good players and for newbies too!

    about the gift boxes.. or idk how its called the darker one. which sometimes gives slowpoke or upside down. so the upside down IS CRAZY 14 sec!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????? are u insane??? going to house takes less time and then u can play normally again. make the upside down thing last for 6-8 sec! thats pretty enough. if u think keeping the 14 sec is ok then u are stupid af.

    about monster maps: monsters are crazy suicider bots. they are agressive and suicidals. in monster maps i die way too much times bcoz monsters respawn always in small places and i find myself always in the middle of those suiciders and they kill me again again and again and i dont get a chance to find a way out. also getting to the portal is almost impossible! make some free ways to portals! or give the stupid monsters those maps where u can walk almost freely through the whole map. (if u dont know which maps i talk about i gladly make a pic and show it to u.) also i hate the kill count of monsters. they dont count at all in the end of the round. ppl told me its easy to kill them. lol yea.. easy......... at least make them worth half in the end of the round so they will count too! killing 50 monsters worth 25 players. i thing giving their life worth half of a real players sound acceptable.

    its good idea to have bots in less than 10 player servers. but lets face the truth.. lots of servers have LESS than 10 players almost all day long. some servers have just a few players when im able to play. so it would be AWESOME if u make those bots PERMANENT! 10 bots ALWAYS stay on maps. it means on a 6 players server there is 16 player. bots are good to play agains even for newbies and noobs too! they are not too easy targets but still they are killable. if u make those bots permanent then we will get MORE players on maps. even if they are just bots. we need more players! playing on empty servers is boring. but i cant play on ru or eu bcoz for some reason i have horrible unplayable lag there. long ago ru was perfect for me. now it always 300-500 and nothing changed on my side.......... !! so yea.. u know what i mean..... finish the desktop client.......
  • give us more medals! its stupid when only 5 player get medals instead of 6. i hate it when a perker get the 1st place and im the non perker 2nd and i dont get gold medal. not so long ago there were 2 gold 2 silver and 2 bronze. its not a big change in the gameplay but for players it feels good to get medals. top 6 deserve medals!!!! also its stupid when an empty server have pluto but no medals... if a shitty pluto appear then why ppl cant get medals too???
  • Nevada wrote: »
    such a good idea.. i would add some too:
    PEOPLE paid for first boss project, but still its SO RARE! it appears daily 1-2 times AND always in the last 3 or less mins.. it would be awesome if those bosses appear in every 5th round and from the start or at least around 8 mins.

    long ago i got some EMail notification about GoB and in every notification i got collectable plutos. its like "Merry Xmas GoB player i hope u all the best and here is free 5 pluto as gift. wish u all the best and have fun in the future". it was a good idea and in the future it will be a good idea bcoz: ppl will get free pluto which give us NON PAYER FREE PLAYERS some fun and chances to get a freakin WAY TOO EXPENSIVE skin.. i play since 2013 or something like that and i have NO SKIN! nothing at all.. i would like to get 1 but i cant. so for free players getting free pluto is a huge help! ALSO! if ppl get notification they will click the link and play a few rounds. maybe even old players would come back if they see a notification..

    idea about maps : DELETE HALF OF THEM! lots of maps are crazy and UNPLAYABLE! some maps have huge black spaces. in those boring maps ppl cant find any opponents to fight against or friend to play with.. some maps have WAY TOO MUCH cement bricks which makes moving very slow.. give us back the old style maps!!!!!! give us those things where ppl can get blue bombs. give us back the places which is full with bombs. give us back that thing where muimui can do her endless chain. give us back those things where ppl can unlock a shield or a jatpack... for us (mostly non perker and free players) this new maps are crazy. ppl with perks have way too much advantage. in the old maps even noobs and newbies could get shield. but now free players dont get chance to stay alive and they get bored of the countless deaths and they dont come back to play again. fix it! old maps were more playable for good players and for newbies too!

    about the gift boxes.. or idk how its called the darker one. which sometimes gives slowpoke or upside down. so the upside down IS CRAZY 14 sec!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????? are u insane??? going to house takes less time and then u can play normally again. make the upside down thing last for 6-8 sec! thats pretty enough. if u think keeping the 14 sec is ok then u are stupid af.

    about monster maps: monsters are crazy suicider bots. they are agressive and suicidals. in monster maps i die way too much times bcoz monsters respawn always in small places and i find myself always in the middle of those suiciders and they kill me again again and again and i dont get a chance to find a way out. also getting to the portal is almost impossible! make some free ways to portals! or give the stupid monsters those maps where u can walk almost freely through the whole map. (if u dont know which maps i talk about i gladly make a pic and show it to u.) also i hate the kill count of monsters. they dont count at all in the end of the round. ppl told me its easy to kill them. lol yea.. easy......... at least make them worth half in the end of the round so they will count too! killing 50 monsters worth 25 players. i thing giving their life worth half of a real players sound acceptable.

    its good idea to have bots in less than 10 player servers. but lets face the truth.. lots of servers have LESS than 10 players almost all day long. some servers have just a few players when im able to play. so it would be AWESOME if u make those bots PERMANENT! 10 bots ALWAYS stay on maps. it means on a 6 players server there is 16 player. bots are good to play agains even for newbies and noobs too! they are not too easy targets but still they are killable. if u make those bots permanent then we will get MORE players on maps. even if they are just bots. we need more players! playing on empty servers is boring. but i cant play on ru or eu bcoz for some reason i have horrible unplayable lag there. long ago ru was perfect for me. now it always 300-500 and nothing changed on my side.......... !! so yea.. u know what i mean..... finish the desktop client.......

  • Nevada wrote: »
    give us more medals! its stupid when only 5 player get medals instead of 6. i hate it when a perker get the 1st place and im the non perker 2nd and i dont get gold medal. not so long ago there were 2 gold 2 silver and 2 bronze. its not a big change in the gameplay but for players it feels good to get medals. top 6 deserve medals!!!! also its stupid when an empty server have pluto but no medals... if a shitty pluto appear then why ppl cant get medals too???

  • edited September 2017
    The problem is they (the devs which are like 2) worked so hard on these elaborate ideas that they completely ignored most important player feedback for years and they allowed two moderators who are very bad at their job take over and completely ruin the mod team, not allowing new mods in (even though there are capable and willing players) with the unproven excuse that no one is better than them at the job (which is very ironic).

    It is quite obvious that it is a very bad business decision, specifically harmful for @Hackerham

    if @Hackerham or @Excuse_Me need some advice I can give it to them, if they care about their customer of course, because yes I have supported the game and invested a lot of time in it.

    It has the potential to be as big as those .io games if only @Hackerham decides to listen to me, Pwnyy and a few other veterans of this game, because trust us, we know what we are talking about, we know this game inside and out and are actually willing to help You if you are willing to converse with us here or in a group chat.

    That is of course if you have any motivation, if not then the game is lost.
  • Whoever decided US server should have the same map year round should be fired. Original bomber man switches maps between rounds. And I don't mean a new permutation of the green and grey map every single round. I mean different themed maps between rounds. I know you have them. You have snow maps. You have chinese/bamboo maps. Probably others. But for some stupid reason you use the green grass and grey blocks map EVERY single day, and every single round, on GOB year round (at least on US server; I don't go on other servers).

    Fix it!

    it would probably be better if there was an option in settings to choose what map you wanted to use (so far gob only has winter, autumn, default, and moon) (and you could have a random option, if you don't like it to stay the same)
    Thanked by 2 Gally BabyThanos
  • idea... we can get plutonium as "Plutonium from referrals".. ppl can get pluto as those ppl rank up, BUT there is no pluto for ur own ranking up? why? it would be awesome if the devs would give us rewards for ranking up too! then ppl might keep 1 main account and even FREE PLAYERS could get some free pluto to buy a fvcking skin.
    1 1
    4 10
    6 20
    10 40
    there is no rank10+ added but still if i could get pluto for my own achievements i could get 71 plutos! +my 35 xd i could afford a skin... ><

    devs! do something about the rewards of ranking up!
  • Another possible idea myself and others have talked about is reducing the number of active servers. I know some people like empty servers for goals, but I think the majority of players prefer more players (instead of bots) on servers. I don't know if, or how much money the devs have to pay to keep some of these empty servers running, but perhaps it would even free up some funds to help improve the game.

    I'd say keep like 3 or 4 main servers like US, JP, EU, and RU. Maybe even combine EU/RU. Send BR to US and send AU/ID to JP. If the game is ever popular again, then fine, open more servers again. But I think empty servers are either boring or too easy to score goals for most players.
  • Whoever decided US server should have the same map year round should be fired. Original bomber man switches maps between rounds. And I don't mean a new permutation of the green and grey map every single round. I mean different themed maps between rounds. I know you have them. You have snow maps. You have chinese/bamboo maps. Probably others. But for some stupid reason you use the green grass and grey blocks map EVERY single day, and every single round, on GOB year round (at least on US server; I don't go on other servers).

    Fix it!

    it would probably be better if there was an option in settings to choose what map you wanted to use (so far gob only has winter, autumn, default, and moon) (and you could have a random option, if you don't like it to stay the same)

    Possibly but I doubt theres enough players for it to work that way.
  • To help bring players back they need to stop the chain flame. Why are new players going to play when experienced players get 50+ kills from killing anything in their path with the continuous flame. There are ways to stop them from doing it but it usually involves well time kicks or throws to block their path to stop them. 90% of the players are not even able to handle it. Even experienced players who just happen to be just randomly in their path when they start the chain. It just drives players from continuing to play.

    Make it so that from the first bomb blown up or something you can't lay anymore bombs after the number you are able to lay, until the flames stop. Doesn't sound right but another way to say is basically you lay 6 bombs and you can hold suppose 9. Once the bombs start to blow you can only lay 3 more bombs until the flame ends. This will stop people who circle around blocks or the unbreakable blocks for the rest of the game.

    So unless the Admins don't care about the game anymore I'd say that is a pretty good fix. If you don't care at least tell us then more people will probably quit quicker to end GoB.
  • I think chain flame is a legit tactic. Its harder for the noobs to get kills on somebody who uses auto shield every round, than a chainer. But they shouldn't ban chaining.
  • I think chaining around blocks takes a bit of skill...
  • another idea! if someone go to a house then this person will automatically teleport to a "fix pointed" house. i mean right now if there is a house nearby then u teleport there, but if ur house is "lonely" then u can make one. i think this game should have only 1 house and everybody should go there. the camping is not as bad as in the previous pluto wars but still.. its a little change and i think its not a shit idea.
  • I can deal with chaining, just a well time bomb kick will stop the player. But whatever if you want this game to slowly fail its whatever. I am just saying that why will anyone play a game where they die instantly all the time. The bomb chain doesn't really take a lot of skill, it's tweaking you computer keyboard settings to do it.

    @OttoWarmbier I haven't used shield regeneration for a while. Been saving it when you play in my game, since you are annoying.
  • I'd agree that chaining needs to be nerfed.
    As it's essentially a product of lag, there should be a desire to deal with it regardless.

    My BIG gripe is suiciders. More and more players are suiciding lately, and not just the alts and noobs.
    I'm seeing more than a few ranked players that basically just suicide through entire rounds, and it's a discouraging tactic to new players and vets alike.
    Why would someone want to stick around the game if every time they play, some body just suicide bombs them 20 times and gets a medal for it?
    I think we need to institute a scoring mechanism that will discourage this kind of behavior. Something that takes into account the K:D ratio when ranking and awarding medals.
    As it stands now, certain players can take medals by being less skilled, which is discouraging to new players.
    There's no incentive to play well, if you can just trap yourself with other players repeatedly to get kills, and score high regardless of how many times you've been killed.
    Thanked by 1 0x42
  • Good post, I agree with most part. It is tumbleweed-time atm at GoB, even sexy enemies are scarce mspacman.gif
  • LazyABB wrote: »
    The bomb chain doesn't really take a lot of skill, it's tweaking you computer keyboard settings to do it.
    explain.

  • @_Salty_ The players you lay a train of infinite bombs that continue to chain bombs after the first blast happens. I think Gally or Pwny made a youtube how to configure you keyboard settings to do the chain some time ago. I can normally chain about 6 or 7 bombs further than my max, but there are players who circle around the indestructible objects forever and no one can approach them at all.



    Found this video of pwnny doing it, but there was another someone posted explaining how to set it up. And other ones people use 6 length flames not 1.
    Thanked by 1 Stranger_Butts
  • QuietTime wrote: »
    I'd agree that chaining needs to be nerfed.
    As it's essentially a product of lag, there should be a desire to deal with it regardless.

    My BIG gripe is suiciders. More and more players are suiciding lately, and not just the alts and noobs.
    I'm seeing more than a few ranked players that basically just suicide through entire rounds, and it's a discouraging tactic to new players and vets alike.
    Why would someone want to stick around the game if every time they play, some body just suicide bombs them 20 times and gets a medal for it?
    I think we need to institute a scoring mechanism that will discourage this kind of behavior. Something that takes into account the K:D ratio when ranking and awarding medals.
    As it stands now, certain players can take medals by being less skilled, which is discouraging to new players.
    There's no incentive to play well, if you can just trap yourself with other players repeatedly to get kills, and score high regardless of how many times you've been killed.

    If the suicider is getting the medal and you are not, and the suicider is ranking higher than you, maybe its your paradigm that needs adjustment, and not his behavior.

    As I have explained on the forums, suiciding auto shielders is a logical and ethical response to the power asymmetry that results from some players using protective add-ons (auto shield among so many others), while other players relying solely on their fighting skills and the standard power ups available to all players every round. Suiciding the perker brings him down to the same level as the purist.

    Plus it (suiciding) is rewarded in the loss probability algorithms. You are more likely to retain kick, for example, when you die if your deaths are greater than or equal to your kills. I have pointed out this moral hazard out to the mod & devs on the forums before, but as it stands, its like a tax loophole: the smart people take advantage of it.
  • LazyABB wrote: »
    @_Salty_ The players you lay a train of infinite bombs that continue to chain bombs after the first blast happens. I think Gally or Pwny made a youtube how to configure you keyboard settings to do the chain some time ago. I can normally chain about 6 or 7 bombs further than my max, but there are players who circle around the indestructible objects forever and no one can approach them at all.



    Found this video of pwnny doing it, but there was another someone posted explaining how to set it up. And other ones people use 6 length flames not 1.


    Speak for yourself. There are ways to kill chainers. Some of us just go ahead and kill them. But feel free to lobby for another rule change, as is your propensity.
    Thanked by 1 UnknownAnonymous
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