Ch2pa a écrit :
Tu peux faire un copy-pasta ici pour les non inscrits du forum WT?
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Je peux
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Dear War Thunder team & community.
I'm not a regular user of the forum. I'm getting out of my casual lurking, and so, hope this post will find its place on the forum and maybe, be useful to people reading it. So, why am I suddenly posting here ? Because after playing for years, and discovering a game going richer and richer, with planes, then tanks, then mixed battles, then always more vehicle, maps, ideas... I'm finding myself playing less and less, not because of boredom, but because those last months, a lot of development choices seemed... curious.
"Ho no, another whiny player is about to cry out loud!" you might think.
Let's not be whiny. This interesting part of the forum is about constructive criticism. Let's talk about facts.
Why is War Thunder great?
War Thunder is great. A lot of us here played many other games before, online or not, and when we got our hands on War Thunder, we discovered something great. The game is beautiful, you've got plenty of vehicles, flying, rolling, and soon© , floating, you can play bombers (not so many games allow it, especially online), you can fly in your favorite dive bomber above a map and drop a bomb on some tank destroyer hidden in a bush allowing your team to move forward, and all this in quite a beautiful environment. Because yes, the game is beautiful. Add the realistic stuff (crew position, shell type & penetration, localized damages, and so on), and yes, you have quite a great game. With different modes for different players : arcade, open to all, realistic, for the ones trying to go further into the experience, and simulation, once you've mastered the realistic battles and want to try the real thing.
Not so many games offer you to hide in your tank under a tree, an enemy plane flying above you, while you listen to the faint humming sound of your turret turning as you search for this enemy tank hidden somewhere in front of you. War Thunder offers an ambiance.
And for this, thank you.
"Damn! This part is over! This means he's gonna attack now!"
Calm down gentlemen : no one is gonna attack. Let's talk.
What's wrong, doc?
I could talk about specific points. But first, let's give a look at the big picture. Gaijin is a company. They're making money. Yes, they do. Complaining about it is a nonsense. This being said, it means Gaijin has a strategy. And a strategy means choices. Usually, I read people here discussing choices. I don't want to discuss every step of the person I'm following. What is really interesting is the path.
War Thunder has three modes, I wrote it : Arcade, Realistic and Simulator ("Thanks for nothing, Captain Obvious !" ). Obviously, it means War Thunder has a stairway strategy. A lot of people come for the Arcade, discover the Realistic battles, and sometimes, even go for the Simulator battles. Once they go for the Realistic, the next stair after Arcade, they can't go back to another game. Why? Because seriously, when you've played a game with tanks and planes on the same battlefield, without indicators or health point, could you really go back to World of Tanks (let's name it)? Would be quite difficult.
This is a fine, efficient strategy. You come & play casually, and then you go further. And once you did, you cannot go back, because the competition cannot equal War Thunder. Theoretically.
Because those last months, all the choices made indicated something : War Thunder is working mostly on its Arcade community.
"This is a serious accusation, sir! But do you have any proof?"
Indeed, chief constable. Let's just talk about the latest.
- Assault Fuse. I don't see any problem with this in arcade mode. Why not. But in a game allowing to play dive bombers, making the bombs not explode on impact just make them a lot less efficient than they were. And unrealistic. Three days ago, I just sighed when making a perfect drop, my bomb hit the rear of an enemy tank. The bomb... ricocheted, flew away, and exploded a few feet behind, not even making a single hit. So much for working your skills on dive bombing. Why is the Assault fuse in those mode? To satisfy some players who comes to mixed battles but are angry about planes being in... mixed battles? Interesting.
- Last Man Standing. A lot of people talk about it, so let's not go on too long on this. There's already a debate somewhere else.
- Camouflage. You can have it, but you have to pay 500, then 1000 golds, then let's forget about it, then sorry but it doesn't really hide you, then... this kind of discussion always ends up with "It was realistically efficient, so people called it cheating."
- Captured planes & tanks. Rare things in the war, it's now a joke in realistic and simulator battles, when players use them in full squadrons to troll the enemy team.
- Symmetrical maps. Again, it's good for arcade. But in other modes?
- Tasks. Tasks are supposed to motivate people to connect and play to do the task. Which turn players into people very passionate about getting the task done. What is the problem then? It ends up with people only thinking about the task. So, when the War Thunder Team has the excellent idea to propose some WWII Chronicle, with the battle of Britain, you find yourself in a scenario. At last! No more super generic team deathmatch! Then, you realize something : the scenario is about getting down AI bombers. And the tasks... about getting down players. What happens then? No one cares about the bomber : everyone goes for the players escort. Which makes the scenario looks ridiculous, as the players ignoring it are officially rewarded with the famous tasks rewards. "Don't play in team, ignore the objective, and you'll have a reward!". Quite confusing.
But it makes arcade players happy! And we have more arcade players than realistic and simulator combined!
And they buy premiums and so on. I know it sounds like an efficient strategy to focus on them and only them, but I don't think it is on middle and long term. And we're getting on the end of the short term, already. Let's see why.
Pleasing arcade players is a good idea. I've been one for a while, and completely understand what people finds there. The not-as-good idea is to apply the arcade changes to all the modes. Because it means slowly killing realistic and simulator modes. The realistic feeling I still had while playing a few months ago is gone. Gone since I see rubber bombs falling down and tanks without killing them, politely exploding a bit farther, or when i'm firing my 12th shell in a tank while the last man standing is jumping from driver to gunner to evade the shells like a ninja.
So, pleasing arcade players isn't in opposition with pleasing realistic and simulator players.
Why is taking care of realistic and simulator players a more viable strategy?
For two main reasons.
- The first one is : the competition. As I said, War Thunder offers mixed battles in realistic and simulator modes like no others. And even if you can find excellent simulators on the market for WWII planes, none offers as much planes and players as War Thunder. But what if War Thunder slowly forgets about this? Then War Thunder slowly turns into an Arcade game. And the competition offers it too. Except that they are specialized in this. Meaning, the arcade customers aren't customers you're sure to keep, to speak in term of business and marketing strategy. So you're weakening your place on the market. The arcade is currently a door to what War Thunder has really to offer. But it's an open door. People come, people go. The objective is to keep them. Because we, players, want more of us to meet, play, and fight with. And you, Gaijin, want more customers. And money. And the more you have, the better it is for all of us. We're on the same team.
- The second one is : the whales. For those here who don't know, whales in every good business model are the nicknames of those players spending quite a lot of money in online games and apps. You want big, fat whales? The guys passionate about WWII are numerous. And what's so good about passionate people? Then spend a lot for the things they like. A lot of you here may know about this train simulation you can buy on Steam. Do you know the price of the game with aaaall of its DLCs? Around 1000$. During sales. And yes, people pay. And that's the business model of those games.
What's the demonstration about? Working on realistic and simulator modes gives War Thunder a specificity making it stronger on the market facing the competition. It generates new "whales", fatter than the arcade ones. And once you manage to bring players on this path, they don't go elsewhere. You stop bleeding players, or considerably reduce the amount of monthly losses. And I think you might like that. Else, you have arcade players coming and leaving through without leaving the "open door zone", and players searching for more realistic challenges leaving to find simulations with less arcade elements.
And yes, all this is perfectly compatible with all the changes already made in arcade mode.
How could we apply that?
I know this part of the forum isn't about suggestions. But, very quickly, let's say :
- Keep assault fuse in AB. Deactivate it in RB and SB.
- Keep Last Man Standing in AB. Deactivate it in RB and SB (or if you really love it, just make it like it sounds : an heroic action. Making it happen only in 5% cases)
- Keep captured tanks in AB. Deactivate in RB and SB.
- Keep all vehicles in AB. Deactivate some depending on missions in RB and SB (no more PE-8 helping his friends with a 5 tons bomb killing half of his team!)
- When you insert new tasks in game, make sure they're pushing the players in the right direction : playing together, reaching the objective, fighting for victory... and not turning any game into some super classical team deathmatch, breaking down the nice work of your team.
The less differences we have between the various modes, the lesser the advantage of War Thunder on the market to fight the competition.
Even War Thunder advertisement spots & trailers promote realism and ambiance compared to other games. Let's work on the coherence of the strategy.
Is that all?
I've been long enough, and most of you probably fell asleep a while ago.
I just wanted to demonstrate we all want the same thing : a bigger, more stable community, and a game making the difference on the market. Because a successful game means money (and you want that), and money means a bigger team, more stuff added into the game, more advertisement, more players, and so on. And with fun for all, from the casual gamer curious about riding a tank or a bomber, to the passionate who only wants to ride his favorite panzer in the heat of the reconstitution of a famous battle.
And I don't want to sound pushy, but online marketing & strategy is kind of my job, so if the team wants to talk about it outside the forum... I guess you have my mail already.
Thanks for reading me.
Message édité par Stukka le 12-04-2016 à 11:22:12