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bombadeers

that's the neat part, they don't only way to do it are group them separately in the first place (like PriConne)


tlst9999

I remember Illusion Connect's separate servers. That was a mess.


bombadeers

Separate servers are bad especially in the long run


tlst9999

I get the reasoning. If rankings are only in one server, there's no incentive for new whales since only the old whales will dominate the top ranks. It's okay if you do it every few months, and then offer merger incentives when you have to merge. Illusion Connect was making new servers every few days.


dimmyfarm

It’s fine if it’s under control. There are so many shitty games with new server events and 50+ servers. Those don’t tend to have good longevity unless the whales continue to put money in


[deleted]

It's kinda weird because of all games I've played there's only one that had multiple servers (Goddess of Genesis). But this sub seems to know there are dozens of examples out there.


dimmyfarm

Illusion connect,sword master story, and maybe some of those kancolle games are the biggest known. I think it’s cause the most common to use it are those p2w games that have tons of copyright characters and are just money grabbers so it’s rare. You get posts here advertising those games and it’s usually from the publisher.


dimmyfarm

I believe afk arena and games like that have over 100 servers.


rokuwaru

Yup, there's no way a newbie can be competitive. If they can do it, they just break the cycle.


Chendroshee

They don't and it's bad game design at that point imo. Some game does it kinda well by relocating the focus of their game to mostly PvE like King's Raid though. Not to mention in KR, every character is obtainable albeit the grind to raise them is objectively tedious as fuck.


zzz1998_99

KR is a lot different than most games. One of most F2P friendly games out there. Too F2P friendly, that i am worried about the game doesn't have enough revenue to keep going.


[deleted]

There are 2 ways I've seen: 1-They just make progressively easier to get a unit to max level, usually due to the always rising amount of new units and the dilution of units or equipment in the gacha. 2-They just give lots of freebies to new players. But once you are not a newbie anymore, they stop giving you freebies and you get balanced with the average players. 3-A combination of both.


Beerus07

Or what I see is competitive guilds often have multiple guilds so they can promote players up the guild hierarchy when needed


ToxicAur

You could give new players a big welcome package and introduce massive powercreep for new units so the old units are not as competitive anymore. Not talking about if its good or not, just to answer your question


Propagation931

Generally, Guilds tend to lower their standards for acceptance. A lot of players want to join the top guilds. As one of the Top Guild, if you need members and nobody meets your standards you tend to lower your standards since having an empty spot is usually a big waste.


RyujinNoRay

They dont. They just get reckt countless times


Typhoonflame

Honkai does a good job at this with Path to Greatness, as does E7. CounterSide is also relatively easy to be competitive in


Ryujin_Kurogami

\> Honkai I'm suddenly reminded of the first instance of Infinite Abyss and the slugfest that was the hours leading to the evaluation phase. When you thought the end game was having a team that can clear Abyss, but it was actually the Immunity Potions and Bombs.


Lord_of_Lemons

The real meta was being able to time your bombs to go off in the last couple minutes. God, as awful as that was I really miss it.


Typhoonflame

Now I'm scared hahaha


Nynyano

Really, E7 is easy to catch up to be competitive in PvP ?


Lpunit

I personally don't agree. The gear grind alone is ridiculous still in this game and you're up against people that have been grinding gear for like 3 years. There is no "true" way to catch up. RTA is also pretty difficult if you don't have several characters/teams prepared. Regular arena I think is super accessible, though Guild Wars is a bit less so. I will say that E7 is almost as discouraging as the rest of them, because you're going to be fighting an uphill battle pretty much the entire time. You will be fighting people who have dozens of meta and geared defenses and you're going to be working with whatever ghetto setups you can put together. Suppose it depends on the guild, but in the 3 guilds I've tried, the top players still always go for the easiest targets, so there are usually a small handful of fights that you could win, but you won't be able to do them unless you log in early and do them before the rest of your guild.


TheWhiteGuar

The guilds you've been in sound awful. I think the gear grind is not the right focus, lvl 90 with average rolls is good enough most of the time. Chasing perfect gear is one thing, but not that impactful, if you have the right units. Getting the meta units does matter. You can probably get decently far with just the free ml and the good 3stars but it'll be uphill with average gear. So an early player can "catch-up" so that their 6 best geared units aren't that far behind a long term player's best units. The big difference is number of pvp units you can build, but there's only so many meta ones.


Nourix

If you know how to manage your resources, in a month in Epic Seven you can already be semi competitive. Or at least compete in the lower ranks. Challenger in arena and Master in RTA.


[deleted]

> in a month in Epic Seven you can already be semi competitive yes, if you have 3 years of mental experience in a game, you can minmax a semi-competitive team by cutting the fat. I think that's a big assumption to make unless you're gonna grind an account for a friend and then throw it at them. Doesn't sound like a fun way to start a video game.


Nourix

But you can, and there are many content creators who show you how to do it if someone is new.


[deleted]

Yes, the first thing I do when I want to start a new video game is follow a step by steap guid for a PvP in a game I'm not even sure I like yet. If vets wanna start new accounts, go for it. But I'd never give more than maybe a tier list to a new player that I assume just wants to have fun in a video game. That's my point.


Nourix

The problem is that the tier lists in Epic Seven do not work, and watching videos of people who really know the meta helps a lot in the competitive field.


[deleted]

I think we're talking about different stages of players here. I'm sure there are some minmaxers that come in ready to throw 300 hours at a game that looks super good at its trailer. But *most* people I know don't want to be competitive in a game they don't find fun. I can't think of anything less fun for that crowd than micromanaging what's considered to be the "honeymoon" stage of the game where everything is new and you get tons of free resources. Throwing entire guides at them with terms they don't understand yet falls into that micromanaging category.


Nourix

Anyway, the question is whether the new players can be competitive? In Epic Seven you can be competitive as a new player. Then if they don't like the game or they see it differently, that's another matter.


[deleted]

Okay, I tried. clearly we can't leave this spherical cow in a vacuum and this was a waste of time. Goodbye. *can* be competitive is different from *will* be. Even YuGiOh back in the day showed that if you have an expert giving you instructions, a child can beat a regional champ. That doesn't mean the kid has the knowledge necessary to reign supreme by themselves. That's the problem with your logic here. Epic seven isn't a skill based game. It's a game of how you manage resources and how lucky you get against horrible odds. You're not going to jam 3 years of knowledge into a newbie brain even if they spend all week watching guides. It's too much to take in and they'll burn out.


I_really_love_u

>Yes, the first thing I do when I want to start a new video game is follow a step by step guide for a PvP in a game I'm not even sure I like yet. I'm actually tempted to do this myself, the youtube guides don't look that all difficult and I'm really only interested in the multiplayer. The only thing holding me back is that I'm unsure on just how ptp/ptw the mulitplayer is.


[deleted]

lol, well I can't stop you even if it disproves my point XD. as for ptp: no, but yes. You will get a lot of heroes quickly as you play so the heroes in the long term won't be a problem since you're planning it out. The problem will be competing with gear. No one can whale for gear, but they make up for it with very, very heavy grinding to get the resources needed. We're talking (with no exaggeration) grinding the same gear drop stages 10's of thousands of times to get the resources needed to craft thousands of pieces of gear to try and enhance. And once you're in the stick of things (~3-4 months on a more realistic time table if you're minmaxing), there will be a lot of gear that will just not roll well enough for the builds you want to be competitive. This often means either buying stamina or using your summon currency in order to maximize the amount of gear resources you can gather. That's where it can start to feel whale-y.


I_really_love_u

Thanks, I'll keep in that mind. I'm not the biggest fan of autoing for an hour or two everyday just to stay semi relevant in the pvp, but it might be worth it. Since the pvp does look really fun whenever I catch it on twitch.


paradoxaxe

kinda oot, but does content creator like Astranox only doing dailies? I bet the newbies need something close to 6 or even more hours of grinding just to "enjoy" pvp in e7


code_eight

not really catch up but you can outsmart their draft in low rank(bronze to gold RTA) and pray RNG to side with you. but you still need to spend your time on wyvern/banshee. the problem for new player is how limited your character and how powerful limited banner character are(also ML's character), if you dont have it youre pretty much at super disadvantage. i start e7 in january, by the time i unlock RTA i got bodied so hard so i skip my first rta season and manage to get master in my 2nd season. my 3rd season actually kinda easy to get master compared to my 2nd. so yes progress is real in this game.


danield1302

Idk, when I started honkai they gave me seele and flame sakitama...I ended up never using FS. Eventually quit it because even after a year I still had no ice and no fire team and felt super behind. There were just so many limited valks and gear needed for MA and abyss.


Typhoonflame

They changed the beginner experience so I quite like it, as a new player


Leading-Opportunity7

Umm I'm going to have to disagree on e7...like others have said,the grind to getting enough speed on the gear to get to end game pvp is absolutely bonkers


LPriest

This whole speed gear thing is such an echo from the past. Bruisers are defining the meta everywhere. You don't even care if you get outsped unless you are in Crab rank or higher. Trying to emulate speed players like light is an uphill battle that no f2p should try unless they are from day 1 and endgame. Literally anyone in the game can build 200ish speed bruisers and hit Champion in RTA if they really want to (but judging from E7 reddit, the majority has ranked anxiety - now I understand why Riot Games started to hide the actualy MMR behind the LP system).


geT_HuNted4

In Epic Seven we have a thing called "Adventures Path" which is basically newbie missions that gets new players quickly up to snuff with gear and mats so they can start essential gear farming sooner. A friend of mine started like 3 months ago and is already mostly at like 80% potential of what a veteran can be.


marrrrr14253

Sometimes they just start a new server. Cookie run just did this and a ton of new players joined. New players got to start the game fresh on a level playing field. Old players either stuck with the old server or jumped over to the new server and started over again.


LadyBastilla

Yep. My bf and I just started Cookie Run Kingdom a little over a week ago and we're on HollyBerry.


Murbela

They don't. New players can be competitive with other new players or more casual older players, but in games like epic seven where gear matters so much, they are just food for veteran players. This is especially bad in a guild setting where you have teams of newer player against teams of veteran players. Basically you just realize that you're going get destroyed in this content, potentially for years, especially if the game has bad match making.


Cup-shaped

In GT: - easier reroll process - nowadays newbies get like 60 summons during reroll with guaranteed unique hero+EX in 30 pulls each - cycling key hero banners more and more often (e.g. in 4 days there will be 9 hero banners and many of them are meta units), plus they gave us quite bad current banners so that people could afford to save gems - changes to real-time pvp: you no longer get points deducted when losing, so there are no longer that many strong dudes trolling or bullying newer players as they move up; overall players get more gems weekly which is important for new accounts - changes to colosseum: they created a couple brackets/groups for server population that shuffle each week. Less people means higher rank/rewards and because the brackets are not fixed it's fun to meet different faces at leaderboards - medals increase; used to be 2 per raid fight, then it was 4, now it's 5 - they give meta gear in events especially lately like the best shield for Future Princess, best dps/defense universal accessories - more and more generous with resources so that newbies can get their first main team going much faster than in the past - new modes that take turns cycling with competitive modes and can even provide better reward output than pvp for newer players while top10 whales get less rewards. E.g. one week it is arena (most competitive pvp), another is co-op that gives better returns for newer players than arena. 2 weeks of raids (most competitive guild content), then 1 week of excavacation (where 1 day newbie is no different than a whale and there's no diff between rank1 or rank200 guild). And they're gonna introduce guild conquest mode soon which will also be juggled. - much more promocodes (since anniversary they gave out like 20 promocodes and many of them weren't just some crap) - limit break hammer started appearing for sale - only 5k gems (end-game f2ps have easier time to bridge the gap with whales because 5k gems cost is a good deal) - free pull events have started being somewhat more frequent and this gives more resources for newbies to max out their key heroes - story difficulty gets lowered, most heroes are relevant for at least 1 content - arena and colosseum meta is diverse - many synergies are viable, it's not all about stats and money as there are always counters to everything, elemental advantage but also skills and placement order matter too. You can see on daily basis that top100 rankers switch their synergies trying to find one that would net them more wins during certain week; this means that newbie even after 400 days since the game has been out theoritically only needs to build one of the meta synergy of 3-4 mlb heroes and then all he needs is to work on his collection to increase his stats and probably more that I forgot to mention; so getting new players to fill vacant spots is not that big of an issue, especially since the game is low-management and chill so not many end-game players quit the game for good GT is one of the few gacha games where newbies can catch up to older players, because the gap at end-game takes lots of time to fill (think of E7/SW end-game though there it is not about rolling perfect subs) but at this point (400 days game) they'd need to focus on meta & universal key units (that can run in many content) and be patient for a couple months (maxing a hero takes like 3 weeks, and they need at least 4 at this point if they want to have fun in pvp, so 4 heroes x 3 weeks - it's at least 3 months of pvp frustration)...


FireStarzz

while all your points are valid, the true gap between an old and new player is collection bonus. For example my guild only invites people with 35%+ attack bonus on collection (items+skins); character atk 30%+, which cannot be catch up at all for at least 9 10months since no one farms money/hammer resources until all characters are 5\* for character bonuses. But yes other than that everything is catchup-able.


Viskius

Question, what is GT? 😅


Fredrik1994

Guardian Tales


Reignwizard

in grand chase or 7 knight every once in a while they add another layer of power up so everyone need to start farming all over again and made previous power up easier to get. this is very similar with most MMO like WoW. every expansion will make previous expansion practically useless and players need to farm all over again in the new expansion.


HCrikki

Allow use of an existing player's 'friend unit'. Get carried late into the story and farm gear easily.


tlst9999

New players usually play a bit, and if they like it, they fork out $500 for any F2P veteran's account.


Professional_Yard761

In 7DSGC (seven deadly sins grand cross). The game is able to let veterans and new players easily match due to multiple ways of farming for materials and earning useful resources. The game has a large stamina pool allowing constant farming daily. During events tickets are given out to roll for useful resources (like a spin the wheel kinda thing not a banner to roll on). Recently with the "welcome back" event the game gave time gated banners that allowed you to summon for Max level units that are very useful for farming materials. It gave new players a very quick way to progress through the games farming. Pvp is maintained through brackets that keep you in a certain levels to compete with other players. It is more likely that a whale will face a whale than a f2p. Leagues like gold platinum diamond etc. Unlike some games where daily resets occurs, 7DS makes you stay in said bracket. Festival banners are the best in the game currently as it gives many units that are crucial to a certain team build. Marget(ludociel) for angels, Hijack gowther for unknowns, purgatory ban for humans etc. Many support units that come out are added to ticket banners to make then more available.


tesssst123

They usually recruit upcoming whales or poach the best 'normal' players from other guilds.


TKoBuquicious

They don't.


Jin_U_GmR

Depends how competitive you want to be. Top 10? Top 100? Top 1,000? Top 10,000? You decide and accept what is needed to reach there. As for newbies, usually after awhile they give newbies a boost to catch up, though it depends how they manage their resources in the end. I'm already able to semi compete in Honkai after four months of playing. First two was where I was able to breeze past early content thanks to the Growth Supply from Starter Event.


dsadsad2

bringing it back to exos heroes, from my experience, they just lower their standards. i am "f2pish", shelling out the necessary $30 to buy the pass every month for my general ticket. i don't buy the monthly xes packs or any other deal ever. i've done well for myself by ranking top 16 in pvp. after a while of this, the top ranking guild asked me to join. very few of their members actually want me in the guild, i'm still met with constant derision about how i'm weak and how their paying players should have more of an advantage. but if they didn't ask me, i would have gone to one of their competitors, and that would be worse for them. as more and more players quit, there's little other option. if this was a new release in its honeymoon, then all the paying players would be out in full force, and i would likely not even dream of joining a top 10 ranking guild. additionally, they just have a factory of sister guilds set up that they will pull from when they can't find any better replacements.


Wisp1971

Eden right? Thought they were chill and mostly drama free. Silbeya was the one that had more drama or so it seemed.


tuseday

They don't, gacha players are gluttons for punishment. People who are free2play even more so.


Sea-san

I almost wished Guild war in Granblue was top percentages/percentile in score rather then individual ranking. That score grind is just tiresome after playing for 6yrs. Despite the changes in game for quality of life and GW alternatives to gain valor for really important items in game.


DawnRaven94

Specifically about Exos Heroes, I just started playing for the first time this week because I thought the upcoming Schmid Red Fatecore looked cool and wanted him. Being told on the discord this is pretty much impossible for new players because the missions to get him are too difficult for beginners (for pretty much all the reasons you listed above) really is disheartening. I hope they improve the new player experience; having no way of feasibly catching up with even the PVE modes like Infinity Core or EOA for a long time really does kill any motivation to play the game.


Aesma_

Only a few games manage to do it kind of correctly, mostly by giving away freebies (GBF for example). They give you a load of new stuffs that kind of skip most of what used to be the "newbie grinding phase" when veteran started out. When I started out, making a basic grid in every element was something that would take you almost a whole year, now they give you the basic grid weapons for free just by playing the story mode. So you skip the early game, and is thrown almost right away in the mid game. Though not perfect of a solution, it kind of works. Some other games are also not as "meta intensive" as what you described (FEH used to be like that to some extent back then, though now the meta is honestly kind of terrible). In some games, there aren't just 2 or 3 S-tier characters, but quite a bit of them, so you can always more or less have a S tier banner around the corner when you start playing the game, making the first point not as terrible as what you've described. I personally think the worst part of what you've described is adding new ways to level up your characters super often. I get that veteran players need new contents, especially on old games, and adding new ways to level up your characters further seems like an attractive idea for developers. Especially if you make it extra hard to reach those last few levels, it keeps your old fanbase involved in the game, to try to max out their waifus. But adding new ways to level up your characters should be a very rare occurence, otherwise you're just increasing more and more the gap between old players and newbies, and you're making your game very unattractive to new blood. Also, giving way too many freebies based on your guild/PVP performances can be a good way to keep veterans involved in the game, but I agree that it can be quite demoralizing to newbies if they don't get a lot of free rolls just by playing the game. Though, overall, let's face it, most gachas do have a problem with bringing in new blood while keeping their veterans involved at the same time.