Dear developers, I am a new player. I thought I would give you some feedback from a newbie. Obviously, different people might feel differently, but this is my opinion from my perspective::
Before I give you my suggestions for improvement, I do want to say that I like the game. The graphics are great, the game play is fun, getting various ships and upgrades are a blast too.
However, there are some real problems,which is why I would bet there are not a lot of new players coming all of the time.
1 You have made the game very unfriendly to newbies. It just is too darn hard! For example, I am on Aurora doing white quests. I have attempted several of them to no avail. Each time, regardless of ship used, I get a LOT of aggro. I can't pull and run away because I have to be in set area to accomplish the quest. Even worse, each area has a commander that we have little or no defense against. For example, several commanders have a stun that lasts long enough for his buddies to more than kill me with some time left over. We , as newbies, have no defense against this. The commmander aggro must be huge because they ALWAYS show up even though they weren't near me when I first attack a mob.
Some mobs that we need to fight have shields, yet we get no ability to piece the shields until we get to later sectors. huh? Even worse, the shielded mobs aggro like crazy.
At the least, the commanders and shielded mobs should be removed from the newbie areas till be get devices that can deal with them.
By the way, lest you think that I am underleveled Aurora, I am level 13 and have some of the best items I could find. I hope you can "hear" the frustration in my writing from what I have said here.
2. Help by upper level players seems to have been changed : If I seek help, I can get some upper level players who are there once in a while to help me. However, I can't do the quest with them because they are too high in level. Even worse, there are no drops in cryo, and gold while I am grouping with them. We also get almost no blueprint drops too. I am not talking about gold BPs either. I was grouping with higher levels at various times and saw zero Cryo, zero gold , and only one blue print drop.
3. Frankly,, I personally hate the membership plan that you have. I would love the ability to pay $5 or even $10 a month and not have to pay for anything else such as energy, gold, special buffs etc. Sadly, all you have is unlimited energy at exorbitant prices.
4. Grinding is mad. There should have been a slightly better way to get Cryo and other items at least with slightly less grinding.
5. Travel to planets can take much too long. If I die, I end up at a planet that takes 4-5 minutes to get back to. I don't know why it should take this much wasted time. Players don't want a lot of time sinks. It isn't my idea of fun waiting for skills to recharge for 40 seconds or to wait while the ship travels several minutes.
Bottom line: Most players, with the exception of those who are a bit masochistic, don't want a very hard or impossible game. This is particularly true for newbies who are still testing the game out and still learning.In case you are wondering why this game isn't growing, maybe my comments are on target.
Before I give you my suggestions for improvement, I do want to say that I like the game. The graphics are great, the game play is fun, getting various ships and upgrades are a blast too.
However, there are some real problems,which is why I would bet there are not a lot of new players coming all of the time.
1 You have made the game very unfriendly to newbies. It just is too darn hard! For example, I am on Aurora doing white quests. I have attempted several of them to no avail. Each time, regardless of ship used, I get a LOT of aggro. I can't pull and run away because I have to be in set area to accomplish the quest. Even worse, each area has a commander that we have little or no defense against. For example, several commanders have a stun that lasts long enough for his buddies to more than kill me with some time left over. We , as newbies, have no defense against this. The commmander aggro must be huge because they ALWAYS show up even though they weren't near me when I first attack a mob.
Some mobs that we need to fight have shields, yet we get no ability to piece the shields until we get to later sectors. huh? Even worse, the shielded mobs aggro like crazy.
At the least, the commanders and shielded mobs should be removed from the newbie areas till be get devices that can deal with them.
By the way, lest you think that I am underleveled Aurora, I am level 13 and have some of the best items I could find. I hope you can "hear" the frustration in my writing from what I have said here.
2. Help by upper level players seems to have been changed : If I seek help, I can get some upper level players who are there once in a while to help me. However, I can't do the quest with them because they are too high in level. Even worse, there are no drops in cryo, and gold while I am grouping with them. We also get almost no blueprint drops too. I am not talking about gold BPs either. I was grouping with higher levels at various times and saw zero Cryo, zero gold , and only one blue print drop.
3. Frankly,, I personally hate the membership plan that you have. I would love the ability to pay $5 or even $10 a month and not have to pay for anything else such as energy, gold, special buffs etc. Sadly, all you have is unlimited energy at exorbitant prices.
4. Grinding is mad. There should have been a slightly better way to get Cryo and other items at least with slightly less grinding.
5. Travel to planets can take much too long. If I die, I end up at a planet that takes 4-5 minutes to get back to. I don't know why it should take this much wasted time. Players don't want a lot of time sinks. It isn't my idea of fun waiting for skills to recharge for 40 seconds or to wait while the ship travels several minutes.
Bottom line: Most players, with the exception of those who are a bit masochistic, don't want a very hard or impossible game. This is particularly true for newbies who are still testing the game out and still learning.In case you are wondering why this game isn't growing, maybe my comments are on target.