AriaVenom

TL;DR I disagree... There will always be less 'new' players than experienced players at any point in time in-game. And it's not about having thick skin or learning to deal with it, it's about enjoyment of the game... once it's no longer fun, there's no point in loading up the launcher. This is something that is fact and equally important for both new and old player retention. ---- I don't know if I can agree with you there. Player retention is equally as important of new players as it is of more experienced players. From my perspective, you will always have players being massacred in this game, but like every MMO you earn or unlock mods and tools and learn as you progress. Though I do feel that 'some' of the Armas items can give you an advantage, when it simply should not for the sake of balance. When I first started this game years ago.. I was not necessarily massacred left and right. Yes, many times I'd lose more often than not, but that whole time I was learning from my mistakes and after a couple of weeks or so of trial and error and talking to people, I learned that I needed to grind for mods, pledge my contacts.... that how you customize your cars can make a difference... etc.. etc. It is ultimately a game and in every game you will lose some and win some. More often than not you will lose when you're just starting out and learning, regardless of who you play against. I feel that universally, every gamer understands that basic principle of gaming and that particularly doesn't concern me as much, personally, as the thinning out of the player base 'herd' and keeping them away from the pack. Heaven forbid you're trying to max out a pledge and get the Gold curse early on as a newer player. Gold is hella easy to get. Heck I stuck to that Star 556 for a very very long time and every so often some new guy with a Star totally wrecks me... I still feel that Star 556 is OP and use it every so often and as such new players are well enough equipped and not overly burdened to learn the game. Like I stated earlier, getting Gold has felt mostly like a punishment and not a reward since you get sent to the 'empty' server and are essentially 'banned' from the game. Additionally, it obligates you to miss out on clan team ups if you're in a clan. Ever try introducing friends to the game and showing them how to play while you're gold? For what??? For actually being good? What is the incentive then to play any game if not to challenge yourself and rejoice in the achievement of getting better? To actually.. 'git gud'? But that's exactly what's happened... and more and more people get tired of de-threating or being penalized for the achievement of high rank. Many more get tired of 'the grind' of dethreating and/or being accused of "wanting to stomp on Silvers" as a motivation to dethreat. That in itself has contributed more to population decline and toxicity than the under achieving noober rage quitting. I myself may sometimes just have time to play a couple of rounds and end up Gold again... I'm faced with the option now to spend more time dethreating before logging out or potentially not being able to play when I log back in. To cut this post short, it's getting long... There will always be less 'new' players than experienced players at any point in time in-game. And it's not about having thick skin or learning to deal with it, it's about enjoyment of the game... once it's no longer fun, there's no point in loading up the launcher. This is something that is fact and equally important for both new and old player retention. I'd dare to say that the one thing that's kept the game afloat, is the fact that the "Advanced Tab" is not intuitive as to it's function. Most new players today see 200 total players in a game as a game that's well into it's death spiral. So yes, I'd agree... get rid of the Advanced Tab and fix or tweak matchmaking... but go further and end segregation.

Agreed.. the problem here has been mostly a lack of population IMO. You have that 1 gold, that gets matched up vs 3 bronzes and a straggling green... Most often it's 1 Enforcer and 4 Crims, probably not even noticing they've 'k'd up while they were smashing/grabbing. I don't understand it really.. It's almost as if people are afraid of a non visible threat zone. At a chance to get better by matching up against higher threats. I'll be absolutely honest, I dethreat like it's going out of style. Half the time it's because the population is over on the Silver districts... other times is because I play with my kids and they're not necessarily at my threat level. And to be perfectly frank, dethreating really sucks... it can sometimes take some serious "not fun" work/time if you're deep in the Gold threat and almost always comes at the cost of your teammate's time. The only fun part about dethreating is being matched up against the petty fools that think they're owning you while you're dethreating and feel like they need to let you know how bad you are in district chat. That verbal abuse of the bad or new players is another thing that really needs to end to promote player retention and population growth, but that's another topic. This obligatory segregation of players has always been, and will continue to be, the worst idea G1 could have had... and honestly.. any idea to further the thinning out of the population will result in an inevitable demise of the game. Driving around in an empty district, more often than not, because you're relatively good at the game, is not entirely fun or rewarding. As it has been, getting Gold.. feels like a form of punishment... I had to create a character in Citadel just so I can dethreat half of those times.

This here's what I've been stating for many years... Eliminate all segregation and just leave Open Conflict up.... Increased populations and no need to de-threat.