Newbies fix

[canff]

Ok i am trying to get newbies to play more and here is the prob... well with the game we have going now... after your newbie turns are gone the fed space have 12 stacks of hunters scouts on any port that is good.. so they all die as soon as the newbies are gone and quit...

The old sm game had it setup so that newbies would not be seen in racial space till they hit a level of exp and kills.. But if they ever went into nuteral or planet gals they can be seen...
But when they hit say Fledgling they are seen by vets in racials to... this gives them time to learn the game.. with out a pod after the first 300 turns...it lets leaders help them play and show them what they can do,...Yes you always have that vet who comes back and pods some but after they get the 10 kills they are back to vet anyway...and now that we save stats most won't be a prob...IT did work in the past and can work now...IA m just asking we give it a try ...it should be a easy fast thing to add.. for all the help it will give... And if we ever do get the walk through in game for newbies they will need to be safe when doing it anyway...need to start some where... and stop thinking about what the vets want and about growing back up to even 500 to 800 players...

[Page]

It was actually a conscious decision to remove the newbie gals, mainly because it just spreads out the few players we have even more, and the newbies don't get any real experience there (it wasn't uncommon for them to just sleep on a port and think it was ok because there was no one to come along and pod them).

What I do want to do is to make newbie kills not count for stats - this will stop people killing them purely for the kill count, which is why I'm pushing on the user ranking system. Also I'd like newbies to lose less when they die (so it's not such an end of the world, lose everything, thing it currently is)

[Freon22]

I was one of the ones that pushed for the newbie galaxy. But it was not setup the way that I thought it should have been. Anyway it was somewhat tryed and it did leave newbies playing a lonely game. So I have to agree with Page on the newbie galaxy but not for the reason of having more targets available for the hunters because of the low amount of players. Edit: Page I am not saying that is the reason that the newbie galaxy was done anyway with, but it was the reason for someothers.

During the last game I joined as a newbie under a new name. After I ran out of newbie turns I was poded by a vet hunter, so I messaged him and asked him why he killed me when I only had about 120 exper points and was a new player. He was very nice about it and said "Sorry but when one of my scouts are taged I run in and attack. I don't take the time to look and see if it is a new player or not" So if hunters are thinking along those lines not giving them a kill point is not going to change anything. Because they will not take the time to look and see if it is a new player or not.

I think the right method to handle this is to make it so that as long as you are in racial and are under x exper points or level, hunters will not get a scout message. This will not stop them from getting a few kills when or if they happen to be in the sector or sector next door. But it will stop them from waiting behind a mine field for someone to tag their scouts then come running to get the kill. This along with making it where they use less exper points and get more money for a new ship when poded. Should make a world of differents in new players learning the game.

[Page]

He was very nice about it and said "Sorry but when one of my scouts are taged I run in and attack. I don't take the time to look and see if it is a new player or not" So if hunters are thinking along those lines not giving them a kill point is not going to change anything. Because they will not take the time to look and see if it is a new player or not.

Well I think in part the reason they don't care who they kill is because everyone counts the same, also adding an option to ignore newbie pings and possibly if necessary actually adding some sort of punishments for killing newbies could work. But I reckon stopping the kill gain will make a difference to quite a lot of hunters.

[Baalzamon]

[15:17] <Baalzamon> page..what if when a vet goes to attack a player in italics in a racial galaxy, instead of the "Attack Trader" button you get "Hey! Leave the little guys alone!"
[15:17] <Baalzamon> or something like that

Or a long long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Darth Nihilius (aka Fedaykin) came up with this idea of gradual awareness in racials...i dunno, i'll try to find the thread and link it

[canff]

Get a message saying warning newbie alert

And if they go a head with the kill they lose 1000 exp.. and don't get a kill added...
And if a newbie dies to a vet the don't lose anything
If they die to a newbie they lose 1/2 there money or something..

[JettJackson]

id agree with either baalz's no killable newbie in racials or canff's penality for killing newbs either one would work in my book

[Kahless_]

I kinda feel like we are going down the wrong parth with this again.

The issue with the old solution (newbs invisible in racials), is that it gave us the illusion that newbs were protected. It "protected" newbies by not letting vets kill them..

The focus of our solutions are all about punishing vets for hunting newbs, thus punishing interaction. Now granted newb hunting isnt necessarily the sort of interaction we want, but in the end, a newb has to be hunted for them to learn what its like to be hunted..And if they dont learn, as soon as their free pass runs out, their dead and havent learnt anything. Sure, they might be more likely to stay on which makes us think "kewl, our player base is increasing", but its only so long before they hit "vet" status, whatever we deem that to be, and decide that dieing sucks (even more when you have experience to lose), and they still quit.

I dont think we shouldnt be focusing on how to stop vets from killing newbies. We should be looking for ways to help the newbie survive an attack when it happens. I'd encourage us to look at coded shot delays, weapon damage penalties (50-75% max damage), those sorts of things. Giving newbies twice or 3 times as long as a regular trader to react to a hunters attack..Atleast then they might get away and thus might actually learn something.

You can only spoon feed someone for so long..At some point they need to learn to do it themselves..stopping vets from attacking them removes probably the only thing that can actually teach them..they're gonna experience a vet attack some time, may aswell expose them to it but make it easier to survive while they're learning rather than waiting till they've traded without fear until we deem them experienced enough to be attacked..and then watch them die and quit.

[Freon22]

We should be looking for ways to help the newbie survive an attack when it happens. I'd encourage us to look at coded shot delays, weapon damage penalties (50-75% max damage), those sorts of things. Giving newbies twice or 3 times as long as a regular trader to react to a hunters attack..Atleast then they might get away and thus might actually learn something.

I do like this idea. As far as my idea on hunter not getting scout message from newbies in racial galaxies is also good. I was think that it could be coded so that as the newbie got more exper then there would be a random chance that when they hit a scout that the hunter would get the message. This random chance would increase as they gained more exper.

Kahless idea is also a very good way of allowing hunters to hunt newbie and giving newbie the exper of being attacked while having a much larger chance of escaping.

Edit: After thinking about this I like Kahless idea better. Also maybe set it so as their exper increases the % of damage increases. So while they are listed as a new player, when they are attacked the weapons have a less of a chance of hitting them and when a weapon does hit it does much less damage. Then as they gain exper, the chance of a weapons hit slowly goes back to normal and the damage done moves back to normal.

[canff]

They are good ideas but this is a game where people can trig 2 times a sec... any ist is dead with any thing you add.. unless they are in a psf they still have no hope of not takeing a pod.. Look at the ports in game...there are so many scouts even most vets are not moveing...let newbies hunt newbies and fight each other...we are only talking about a short time here anyway till they get what ever level of exp/kills.. or what ever new way page ranks people....vets need to know they can't stat pod newbies...any newbie that runs out of newbie turns and moves right now is in a pod with in 6 hours of loseing the turns...and 80% don't move again...