The future of Outwitters

[erikpdumont]

I do a lot of grassroots organizing in my work. Anyone who has ever done that knows that a big part of the job is recruiting followers, volunteers, activists, etc. It got me to thinking about this game and how some of the strategies we use in advocacy could be used to improve Outwitters. Got me to thinking about one of the most common complaints I've heard and have had myself: lack of new compelling players to play against. In the last week alone, I've had no less than 10 games paired against the same person. I understand the reasons for this, but I feel like it is fixable problem. I'm not any kind of techie at all, so have no idea how to implement anything I'm going to suggest.. But I know Adam and Alex are veritable techie geniuses, so I'm confident. .
Anyway, to get more people playing, this thing need some presence in social media. Strategy games that don't have an eighth the fun and creativity or strategic challenge that Outwitters has have much bigger playing audiences just because they are on Facebook. I'm not sure how it would be done, but it seems even making a way for the replay links and results to be posted would immediately attract lots of new players without even having a Facebook version of the game. I'm not sure how many I would post myself, but I can imagine lots of people would (just look at all the requests you all get for FarmVille or Candy Crush). If there was a way to post something like "Outwitter Genius Wins vs Someone Lowly - see replay here", I think something even that simple would go a long way to bringing in fresh blood. Just my two cents, but utilizing social media to bring in more players seems like a good piece to add at some point.
Cheers all,

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Also, it -would- be kind of awesome to brag about getting promoted.

[Flarp55]

^ Strongly in support of the above. Though I don't use social media myself, I can imagine how this would attract many more player to the game.

[The Big Jalacktus]

Something that needs to come to Outwitters 2 is an instant satisfaction/replayable game mode. All day today I have been reloading my game queue waiting for the turns that trickle in. Playing a CPU is one solution, but I do not believe that would be appealing. Another idea I have is a situational mode, in which there could be 50 or so puzzles where a board is set and you have to win the game within 1 or 2 turns or defend an attack for 1 to 2 turns (these have popped up in the forums from time to time as a quiz for everyone to try to solve). This game mode would allow for new players to learn to think out moves and yield to a better community of players.

As far as the teams/maps concern, I believe that 3-4 new teams and specials should come out from the get, but the original four teams and maps would not be released for a year or so (whatever time period it does not matter). This implementation will hook the players who were active for a time or just tried the game for a short time. If the original teams were used this crowd of people would think fairly quickly that Outwitters 2 is the same thing as the original and would grow bored and leave the game.

If there were to be a map rotation, why not allow for a team rotation. Every 6 mos or year or so the community would get one month to enter a submission for a new map(s) and a new team. Then, OML and possibly a few community members would be in charge of narrowing the entire spectrum into a pool of 10-20 maps and 10-20 teams. The community would then be allowed to vote for their favorites and the least favorite/used teams/maps would be cycled out.

[onealexleft]

(07-16-2014 04:46 AM)CombatEX Wrote:  D. Other thoughts
1. +2 wit spaces Perhaps implementing a type of wit space that gives +2 wits would prove beneficial to gameplay (as brainstormed in the comments of a thread I posted a while ago on predictability and turtling in Outwitters). On most maps there is a clear optimal path of approach when attacking your opponent. There is still enough variety that Outwitters is by no means stale, but I believe opening up other possible routes of attack would improve gameplay. One of the issues I addressed is that harassment of certain wit spaces is always inefficient and ultimately not worthwhile which closes off these routes of attack for good players.

Why are certain wit spaces not worthwhile? They are much further away from your spawn spaces than your opponent's and/or are not along the most direct attack path towards your opponent's base (for example, the top wit spaces on Long Nine or the top left and bottom right wit spaces on Foundry). These spaces occasionally see some action but more often than not they see none. By making these out-of-the-way wit spaces more valuable, it opens up the potential for new attack paths that aren't always directly towards your opponent's base.

Hmm. My memory may be failing me but I feel like we had +X wit spaces in pre-release during beta (more than 1 wit bonus), as well as multiple wit spaces. The general conclusion we came away from it is if it is ever contentious (meaning it's a pathway to attack for both sides) it magnified FTA issues.

[onealexleft]

(07-17-2014 04:14 AM)GreatGonzales Wrote:  In theory OML could make Outwitters 2 relatively cheaply because of all the code which can be moved over to the sequel.

I wish that was true. Server-side ya, but client is kind of DOA for re-use w/o porting 100% of it.

[CombatEX]

(07-18-2014 04:18 PM)onealexleft Wrote:  Hmm. My memory may be failing me but I feel like we had +X wit spaces in pre-release during beta (more than 1 wit bonus), as well as multiple wit spaces. The general conclusion we came away from it is if it is ever contentious (meaning it's a pathway to attack for both sides) it magnified FTA issues.

Perhaps that is true. Unfortunately I wasn't part of the original beta team. However, I feel it is inaccurate to judge the +2 wit change from back then as there have been many changes to the game since. Most importantly, player 2 has increased starting wits. Before this FTA balance change it was often hard for player 2 to adequately defend their wit spaces and/or important units. Naturally it follows that having wit spaces worth more would magnify this issue. However, now that player 2 has enough wits to make FTA much less of an issue, +X wit spaces would have to be retested to really come to any solid conclusion.

I do agree completely in regards to having contentious (on the natural path of attack) +X wit spaces being potentially problematic. That is why this change is meant only for out-of-the-way wit spaces. If the spaces are easily accessible then it defeats the purpose of the increased value. The increased value is supposed to make out-of-the-way wits spaces more efficient to attack (because there is a greater reward associated with the increased cost). Increasing the value of wit spaces that are already on the way to the opponent's base or nearby (within 5 spaces/runner striking distance from your spawn) could indeed be a problem and is not the intention of this change. With the current map pool there are actually only a few wit spaces that this could work for.

Some examples of wit spaces that I feel could benefit from +2 wits would be the top wit spaces on Long Nine or the top left and bottom right wit spaces on Foundry.

Some examples of spaces I would NOT suggest be increased to +2 wits are spaces like the space on Glitch, Sharkfood Island, Peekaboo, etc. Increasing the value of these wit spaces would simply magnify momentum swings and not open up new attack routes.

[Braves820]

This game balance on two different concepts. One being easy simple gameplay. The other being the deep strategic gameplay that we will all come to know and love as beginners

[Qwerty]

I think that the game could make another mode, 1 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1

[Chemoeum]

(07-28-2014 10:26 PM)Qwerty Wrote:  I think that the game could make another mode, 1 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1

That's called Free for All.

Anyway, how about 1v3?

[Demon]

(07-29-2014 01:52 AM)Chemoeum Wrote:  

(07-28-2014 10:26 PM)Qwerty Wrote:  I think that the game could make another mode, 1 vs 1 vs 1 vs 1

That's called Free for All.

Anyway, how about 1v3?

*sings Ted Nugent*

Cool map btw