Making it easier for new people (non-paying players)

Quote from Easty

Hey guys,

So, me and one of my boys (who invited me to this game) has invited about 7-10 people between us to play together. These players find it hard when first starting up due to the low amount of station(s) they start with. I was thinking to make it easier for people, we should lower the price in game for stations, expansions and make the costs higher as you progress and or add buildings. Now me, I purchased coins and made mine more sustainable and added more stations to make my time less frustrating and have more fun of course. But for those that can't afford it (75% of the player-base under 18), I think we should make it more sustainable for them as well. Or give people 500k credits when first starting out. That will give you a few fire stations to start off with and expand them with the proper vehicles to do so. I'd lock EMS and Police for the first few days of them playing, that way they are not purchasing these items without having a Urgent Care or Hospital to transport to. I think this would help grow the game a lot, bring back a lot of inactive players as well.

Also, I'd love to see this game advertised as well, it's so much fun when playing with others. When playing by yourself, it's not as fun and not as enjoyable. But when playing with others (promoting alliances), it's a great experience. Especially if you are close together and can share the calls. I'd love to see this game continue to expand and grow in the meantime. I figured I'd give my advice on the situation and I'm always glad to help if you need it.

- Easty

Display More

It's noted you've used some numbers in here, I'd like to see them backed up rather than just plucked from thin air. It rather invalidates points when this is done.

It is a notable barrier to overcome for the second station, however with a little bit of gameplay, not what I'd call overly much, you can quite easily get under way with the game. The use of police stations and ambulance stations does not require a hospital or police cell, I'd rather players were given the opportunity to use them, rather than limited further. While it may be more profitable to stick to fire stations, the player should be left with the choice.

The main point of the game, is simply to a building game - so giving someone new 500k credits = 10 small fire stations (un-expanded), completely defeats the purpose of the game, you're supposed to sometimes have those early, annoying grinds. Its not supposed to be easy, the game has to be challenging to keep people engaged and actually aiming for something.

Once you start the game, its purposefully structured to be easy, and with more stations, more income, but more challenging.

What may be a better and less radical suggestion, is simply a tutorial which introduces how to manage finances, when to upgrade, and when to branch off to different services.

If you can get into an alliance early, new players can attend large scale missions, giving them large cash boosts

Quote from Easty

That is true, if they are near them in the area. With me, when I joined US National Dispatch (which is a good group of guys, don't get me wrong), I am in a remote area because I went local. Nothing was near me in terms of large scale missions.

It is an issue with larger groups, although, what you lose in terms of event participation, the alliance will make up for with alliance courses, hospitals and prisons.

There are means on this game to expand quickly, however, they aren't immediately obvious, which is one area where there could be improvement in terms of signposting.

Quote from Easty

That is true as well. The goal would be to retain the people that you bring into the game.

It's all about making the Gameplay fun and interesting, it's never going to wholly interest everyone so we're not always going to be hitting 100%. That said there are loads of factors that would increase player retention, one of them is alliances themselves and how they involve their players, this could be improved by giving alliances more tools. We do have to have a balancing point for each area though...