We need more players! Especially for the 1v1 ladder. What can we do?

I shall preface this entire thread by saying that this is not criticism of Uber, but rather concern for the game. More players means that Uber are more likely to continue development and work on improving the game, fixing bugs, introducing new features etc. But it also means that people like me who enjoy ranked 1v1 games are much more likely to get an opponent quickly, and also more likely to get a well matched opponent quickly.

The Steam Stats for PA show that the recent sale seems to have brought in some new players, which is very encouraging. I hope my new series of tutorial videos will help them! However, you can see that the last peak of players was in December 2014, and since then many players (on Steam) have stopped playing. We don't know how many people use the Uber launcher instead, but I would guess that at least 50% of people are using Steam.

The good people over at Exodus Esports do great work creating and hosting tournaments. I never watched gameplay on Twitch or game casts before, until I started playing PA. I watched @ZaphodX's videos to help learn the game, watched people like @clopse and @elodea on Twitch, and have watched the recent tournaments on hitbox.com. Great banter from casters, chatting with people about the games in progress, enjoying unique and exciting gameplay... good times! @Greendolph in chat just now suggested crowd-funding prize money for a tournament, which I think is a great idea. But in general, I think tournaments and competitive PA games are a good way to get attention and publicity on the game.

Uber are doing their bit, continuing to develop this great game. We, the community, can also do our bit to get PA the attention it deserves. Think of it this way, just one PA video going viral could generate thousands more sales for Uber and thousands more players for all of us to play with!

So let's talk about what we can do to try and encourage more people to a) come back to PA if they've already bought it and b) buy it if they haven't already!

More like 95% are using steam.

Wild speculation. Only Uber know.

I really would like to play this game but I just can't get into it. My friends and I are huge SupCom/FA fans and I thought we would really enjoy this game but sadly we don't.

I think UBER is doing a great job.
That being said I like big bots and I can not lie and im sure im not alone.

I always felt that experimentals, super heavies etc. were a massive (hehe) attraction for most people that play this kind of game.

The thing is it is really hard to get someone interested in PA that has never shown interest in any RTS games.
The people that play RTS games fall into many different interest groups so to speak
company of heroes, supreme commander, starcraft. wargame etc.

All these games despite being rts (some might say rtt) are actually really different from PA -yes even supcom.
Meaning that PA is a complete different experience.

Oh and 1v1 is brutal for newbies jus putting this out there.
I never cared about that but many people will get frustrated really easy losing in 1v1.
So starting out in teamgames is easier for most of them afaik.

Game needs to be marketed more towards a solid single player campaign imo. People will slowly migrate into multiplayer when they find they enjoy it and understand concepts. Most people don't buy games for multiplayer.

Other than it being far too late to develop a campaign for PA, I'm going to tend to disagree. I bought PA thinking it wouldn't have any single player experience at all. Not to put aside that games like Battlefield are mostly multiplayer games with a very minimal campaign. Titanfall managed to be wildly successful without every having a campaign.

I think the issue that you highlight is that PA has a painful learning curve with very little instructional information.


To retain players, I think 2 (or 3) things need to happen (actually, stop happening). First the game needs to settle, i.e. not updating monthly with major changes. The game needs to find a balance and stick with it; I'm not playing partially because learning how to play every month or so is annoying. The game also needs to be polished until it blinds us. All of these little bugs going away will make a huge difference, no matter how insignificant they seem.

For me I'd want to see a big Galactic War overhaul, some interesting units that aren't the cookie-cutter ones we have now and some terrain improvements. Game would be near perfect with those additions imo.

More Tutorials for new players probably are the #1 thing to make more players stay.
Is something we can partially do. Your videos are a good thing. However many people probably would profit most from a build in tutorial. Only that really is available to even the newest newbie.

Also yeh, GW, fancy experimentals, fancy terrain and blinding polish.
More Modding support specfically to allow additional gameplay modes also can help.
Annoyed at the standard game? Play a tower defence or similar fun mod.
Also btw I think adding a bunch of fancy experimentals is the more interessting choice over adding asteroids, if I had to chose between them.

Unfortunately uber has probably almost saturated their possible market with all the sales. You can't hype people back into a game if they already have it in their library and have made up their mind that they'd rather spend their time on something else. I've seen it happen before in other games.

And yea, like the poster above me mentioned, you need a good singleplayer 'tutorial' with varied scenarios to capture and keep more of the market. GW is really quite bad and doesn't implement the rng well. You don't put players into situations that are artificially impossible due to large factors outside their control, and you don't make it wipe all their progress because of it.

Is there anything in particular your having issues with? I know the learning curve is pretty steep (although if you know SupCom then at least you know the basic way things work which is a plus).

I know many SupCom franchise players miss many things as PA is very much a TA sequel rather than SupCom related although having played both games my personal take is PA sits in between them in many respects (with a faster pace than either).

One thing worth mentioning, PA is quite moddable and there are a *huge* host of mods that add stuff not in the main game. Things ranging from hand crafted maps that give you more typical 'RTS' type game play (giving you discreet lanes and ordered obstacles, bridges, tunnels and such). We also have many UI tools to automate some of the game play to help make things a bit easier to handle. Also there are total rebalance mods (such as @stuart98's excellent 'Galactic Annihilation' which adds in many more units including Amphib and a host of Experimentals).

To get access to these you need to install the PA Mod Manager (you'll see it referred to as 'PAMM' on the forums a lot). Link:
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/pa-mod-manager-pamm-cross-platform.59992/

Experiments might do it.

No, seriously.

Aside from 1v1 where you could argue the game is fun and balanced, what's the solution to winning a land battle right now, build a load of Vanguards? Boring! Especially when static defences are so strong.

What's the solution to winning an air battle? Build loads of T1 fighters? Boring! especially when static defences are so strong.

Basically. The only way to win is to churn out units. The only way to churn out units is to have a strong economy. This results in people sitting in their bases building up their economy and building up a big army of bland boring units. Then, you pick the right time to send your swarm in, and you win. If you pick the wrong time, your army gets killed and you start again.

I think the game would be more fun if individual units mattered a bit more. The only way I can see this happening without completely changing the game is to introduce a new layer of units. It would be a lot more fun for instance to build an experimental and use it tactically rather than letting the game play out an extra 30 minutes with every player just sitting in their base. It would be cool to send in an experimental for a short attack, get it back to base, repair it, then send it out again. And make the build time lengthy, but the repair time short. This would allow you to build outward bases to repair your experimental from, rather than just building another if it dies.

The end result of this would be a more tactical end game, better visuals, and more chance of getting casual players interested because the game would look cool.

This is solid thinking.... when applied to a gigantic triple A game with a dizzying budget and the campaign already ready when the game comes out.

there was never the budget for it and now it would be too late for it to have any effect.


we have to focus instead on making the multi good straight away as that is the only thing that can make this game's perenniality.

Realistically 1v1 needs more maps to play on. Also matchmaking is not really good when it trows rookies against 10x better players at least that's what I saw when I tried playing 1v1 ladder. It also gets boring pretty fast to play on the couple of maps that are there especially when you have to play on the same map two to three times in a row.

As for the game itself it needs more units, shields option (i know pros hate those) and obviously experimentals and orbital/space combat expanded. Orbital radar range needs to be limited and not encompass the whole system, etc. A lot of place for improvement left. The game is definitely good but it still leaves the feeling of being half finished.

I'd like to do a "what is PA" article, with animations, talks about the games history, rocky start were its going , a right good looking page with animations, a real showcase web article. I can do the web work, but i need help writing the article, as anyone in exodus can testify, you don't want me writing articles.

So when someone say's whats PA, you point them to this link.

@Quitch was also working on a new player experience.

I also recommend, a new player night, were the existing community offer to help new players, which could lead to pro-am style tournaments.

Another idea would ladder tuesdays, were we try and get as many people playing ranked games, all on mumble/teamspeak.

If exodus can help with a webpage and some graphics.

Why aren't you enjoying it? There's probably a way to get you to enjoy the game. Different type of game, maybe you need to some help learning a certain aspect like the flow economy... lots of us here on the forums would be happy to help.

I consider myself a writer, so feel free to pm me, sounds like an interesting project.

A 'new player' night sounds like a great idea, would def benefit from help/promotion from Uber though.

I think in general, emphasising the friendly community will help new players. Even if they struggle with learning the game they might stay if they make a few friends and have a laugh on VoIP.

I was considering doing a lengthy piece on the origins, history and community of PA at some point when I get time. When you think about it, over the course of two and a half years, so much has happened here, and a lot of it extends beyond just 'one game and its community'.

This thread is full of fantasies.