Four Suggestions for Adam and Alex

[Huperniketes]

Dear Adam and Alex,

I like playing, when it's my turn to play. However, there are several elements which are extremely annoying and for which O quickly loses its appeal.

1. Turn time limit.

It's seriously annoying to get into the mindset of playing and then have it end while waiting for opponents to play their turn. Coders and artists know what it's like to be in the flow and have it constantly interrupted. What's the point of playing an otherwise fun game if you have to wait more than a month to get to your 20th turn?

Suggestion: Real-time gameplay, and/or a 30 minute turn limit. And the timed limit doesn't require forfeiture of the game, you just lose your turn.

2. Let me see the unit stats/moves while waiting for my comatose opponent to regain consciousness. If I can't move my pieces now, I should at least be allowed to plot some strategies while I wait my turn. The same data that I'm shown upon clicking on a unit while it's my turn should be available to me while I'm waiting and reviewing the game board.

Suggestion: Enable hints while reviewing the game board.

3. Recolor Red Scallywag's Sniper so it looks, y'know, red. I thought it was my opponent's!

Suggestion: Make sure it's obvious which team each unit belongs to.

4. Don't be leashed to the idea of The Casual Gamer. It's an important concept and one which aligns well with the lifestyles of iOS users. But we aren't only casual gamers, and we don't just play casually. It depends on our moods and circumstances.

Think of gameplay like the sales funnel that we're taught in web analytics or sales seminars. Sure, you want to entice new players to download, play a few games, play leagues, purchase virtual goods, etc., and it's great to keep the casual gamer in mind as you design the game in line with the funnel. But when you cater too much to the idea of the casual gamer persona (or at least the persona you've created for your analysis), you're actually alienating those of us who want to play more than one or two turns a day.

How high is your bounce rate? When you see prospects abandon the funnel you've got to figure out where and why. I've been playing a week now and I'm still trying to get my first five tournament plays finished! I can't see anyone but serious outwitters sticking with this "casual" game that long.

Suggestion: Don't alienate both serious and casual gamers (paying customers) by catering to the mythical Ideal Casual Gamer (non-paying persona). Creating alternate paths to gaming fun and profitability.

Thanks for the game and your time!

[TheGoldenGriffin]

A 30 minute time limit?! What if we need to go to sleep? We all don't live in the same time zone. What if we're doing something else while we're waiting for out turn? The notifications don't work correctly all the time. Once i went to outwittters and it said it was my turn 32 minutes ago and there was no notification. I don't get number 3 because in 1v1 its red against blue and in 2v2 it's blue and green vs red and yellow.

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Oh and, they already have a lime limit. It's 4-5 days.

[GoHeat 3]

I think it's quite obvious which team unit belongs to which. If your not sure you can look at their health which is circled by the team color. -__-

[Huperniketes]

(01-30-2013 08:18 AM)TheGoldenGriffin Wrote:  A 30 minute time limit?! What if we need to go to sleep? We all don't live in the same time zone. What if we're doing something else while we're waiting for out turn? The notifications don't work correctly all the time. Once i went to outwittters and it said it was my turn 32 minutes ago and there was no notification. I don't get number 3 because in 1v1 its red against blue and in 2v2 it's blue and green vs red and yellow.

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Oh and, they already have a lime limit. It's 4-5 days.

So the current gameplay mode works well for you. I'm suggesting an additional mode where games complete faster.

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(01-30-2013 08:25 AM)GoHeat 3 Wrote:  I think it's quite obvious which team unit belongs to which. If your not sure you can look at their health which is circled by the team color. -__-

I don't think it's always obvious. Hence my suggestion.

[Ryzuma]

I like the extra mode for faster gameplay. Sometimes i just feel like playing a full game

[Harti]

I like your second and the last suggestion.

About the live game mode... yeah I'm not sure. I think that games might still take too long this way and I never have the feeling that I'd have a period of 3*20 (my turns) + 30*19 (enemy turns, worst case) minutes (= 10.5 hours) undisrupted time available.
I'd love to see something like that sometime along the way though, maybe that you do five turns in a row, then can but don't have to pause the game for a day. But I feel there's no real good way to implement such a thing. You could lower the base health but that'd throw over the complete strategy of the game and everybody would go for Mobi snipers maybe.

[EkoFox]

(01-30-2013 08:06 AM)Huperniketes Wrote:  Dear Adam and Alex,
...
3. Recolor Red Scallywag's Sniper so it looks, y'know, red. I thought it was my opponent's!

Suggestion: Make sure it's obvious which team each unit belongs to.
...

I like your other suggestions, but this one doesn't really seem grounded. If you look at the sniper's eye, it is very clearly the color of your team. While the sniper's tentacles are blue, its head and hat are team-colored.

[TheGoldenGriffin]

I actually have an idea for the real-time without the problem Harti said but i don't know if it's possible. Could you explain number 4 cuz i dont get it.

[CombatEX]

I posted this idea around 5 months ago, but it was called out as being too hard to implement. It probably isn't worth the trouble, but if it could be added I think it would be ideal.

Speed Outwitters
30 minute clock for each player. Take as long as you want on any given turn but it will eat into your overall time. When your 30 minutes are up you lose. This way all you need is a block of 60 minutes at most and can even take a 5 minute break if something comes up. It also avoids the problem where your opponent only takes a turn or two every 30 minutes and then before you know it you need to sleep but the game is still going on.

Lenient Speed Outwitters
A potential spin-off (better name required =P) is to have a 30 minute clock for each player, but with a difference. When your 30 minutes run out you don't lose, but then have a 1 minute timer for each turn until the end of the game. I think the first mode is sufficient, but this is just another possibility for those of you who don't like the idea of an auto loss after the clock runs out.

[daHsu]

One thing which is semi-relevant is I would like a change of the Green/Yellow units in 2v2. Not only are their colors uglier than Red/Blue, but a couple color-blind people (like me) get them mixed up so often!