Bonus for Lifetime members - Mentoring

Neptune's Pride Feature Requests
1

So here goes. I joined a new 8 player game, and as I was at work with an unfamiliar IP the game gave me a position in a starter game.

It’s not going well to say the least, I gambled large and I failed. But at the start of the game I sent a mass message to players asking if anyone needs any help.

I got three replies, some asking for general tips, others asking for tactical advise, my big problem with this is that I’m also a rival. Trust is the big issue.

What I’d like to suggest is the idea of a MENTOR position in games. Basically a premium perk, where you can view games, and also post in them. No scanning info, just the colours of the stars, access to the stats and profile pages and the ability to message.

Thoughts?

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I think somthing like this is a great idea.

Perhaps they can be in the game, but they can’t win.

Perhaps the player can be like a super advanced civilization that watches from another dimension. The could be in a formal alliance with all players?

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My only problem with the Alliancing is that you could see everything. Warn people about sneak attacks etc. Sell information for renown etc. I don’t know.

A fortress of solitude homeworld, several hundred hours from anyone else could also work, and I assume would be easier to code.

If it helps even one person in their first game stay for another game, then eventually thats an extra person who puts money into triton.

Plus if mentors were terrible, you could complain about them. :smile:

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Ok, If you were aligned but could not share scanning that would be best I think. A world that couldn’t be invaded.

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I was thinking it could be like a Dungeon Master.

6

oooh.

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Perhaps “Mentored Game” could be a new game type to join. 8 new players plus 1 lifetime premium player who can see everything, do everything, but can’t win or be awarded renown or badges. That way I’ve got no dog in the fight about who wins.

I might start out with a larger than normal empire, with a bit of extra tech and money and be placed right in the middle of a circular galaxy. I’m surrounded by all the other players and can interact with them from the start. We play with the idea that we’re going to interact, ask questions and learn the strategy of the game.

I’ve got extra tech, ships and money so I can waste it all to show the other players how things work. I don’t have to say “I’m broke, so I’ll have to wait until cycle to do a tech trade with you”.

Maybe the game runs for a certain set of cycles that allow the players to get a good feel for things, grow their empires, have some skirmishes against each other, then they’re encouraged to come after the mentor. They all work together to take me down, and since it’s 8 on one I can play as hard as I like, and they should still be able to kill me. They get to see a more experienced strategy though, and can even ask questions about why the mentor did certain things while they’re happening. I know I’m going to die, and I don’t get anything for winning, so there’s no reason not to explain things in detail.

Once I’m dead, the game ends and we can move to our own thread on the forum where we can continue the discussion if need be.

I know that I played for about 6 months before I developed a passable grasp of strategy, and it still doesn’t work to terribly often. I got a coworker to start playing, talked him through things and in 2 weeks he’s already nearly to my level of understanding. I think mentoring is a great idea, and also think there should be a way to rate mentors as well, to make sure the right people are being ambassadors.

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Does it need to be 8 players, why not make it 6 or even 4? Surely the big turn offs before you get to know the game are the number of AFKs and how long everything takes.

Also, in these games it would be good to allow other mentors or maybe someone else to step in and take over any AFKs.

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Interesting idea @Praxux. Kind of like a dungeon master, except for a strategy games rather than an RPG.

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Absolutely, except I’d be running the game without the DM screen up blocking my machinations, allowing new players to see the context and thought process behind what I was doing and giving them a big boost up the learning curve.

It would be my job to be completely transparent-“I’m researching Experimentation first, because I like to have the early tech boost…”, or “I like to focus early on expansion and the land-grab phase, so I focus on Range tech and buy a lot of carriers”. And to communicate things they should all be thinking, but in an open forum so all the players get the benefit the advice- “We see that Player X is stuck in the corner, and is pretty isolated from the nearest stars, he’s going to want to focus early on bridging that gap, otherwise he runs the risk of languishing up there while the rest of us continue to grow”.

It feels like that sort of thing would have been helpful to me when I started, and would be willing to help with implementation or design if it ever became a reality…

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I don’t like that there are no rewards. It would get old very quickly for some of us if there’s no ultimate gain, no bait, as it were, other than toying with the hatchlings we intend to eat later.

I could see that, if there’s no other profit, some of our more true-blooded, cuttthroated veterans walking in and royally trolling every newbie with advice that works only because they make it work in that game, and makes them easy, helpless pray in a 64 or proper game.

Maybe if we premiums could earn badge points? I don’t purchase credits, so this is clearly a biased point with me, but, here me out: imagine if acting as a tutoring Elder Race Enclave gave benefits like credits? The credits are for other players, of course, for awarding badges. We all know that, but currently there’s no way to obtain that for free. Well, if, say, a premium player successfully completed (I.e, without quitting) a Mentor Galaxy a certain number of times, they get a credit for free? So if I completed 10 galaxies helping the fledglings, I would receive game money for my contribution to further enrich my fellow players.

And I wouldn’t be getting a reward that directly improves my status, save that I would be giving other players badges more often, an ultimately selfess internal economy, as it were.

This really does sounds cool! *Praxus, I’m Communion of Minds, by the way. :wink: * The idea of being an Elder Race that’s set up a Nest Galaxy for the younger beings. Could work great with them old NP avatars Hey, I’m gonna advertise them, it’s my pet project .

In a way, this really, REALLY reminds me of Blight. Now I have this idea of players being allowed to constantly join in an attempt to overthrow the central power. This could be a premium-player only game called a Siege Galaxy? Just a thought, while we’re brainstorming. There could even be Siege Gates that open directly into the Besieged Empire to help deal with the natural power disparity, or somesuch.

But that is another trail with another bunny, however fluffy and juicy.

Ahem. The concept of Mentoring is great, and I agree the Mentor shouldn’t be able to scan other stars, or at least not all of them at once. That sounds a bit unfair.

We would also have to work out about the profanity rule, as that might be troublesome, and goodness knows some lunatic skulking out there would just LOVE a chance to proliferate their pollutions… and stuff.

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CoM! Good to meet you IRL (sort of)! I like the idea of a reward in the form of credits. My thought was, that eliminating renown and rank points, as well as the ability to ear badges would keep the cutthroat folks out of the mentor program, since there was nothing to gain. Earning credits seems to keep with that ideal, since, as you say, it would only allow me to purchase things for other players.

I’d view the Mentor Corps as a group of people who wanted to be ambassadors for the game. I’ve certainly gotten enough enjoyment out of my experience that I want to spread the word. I think the initial group of mentors would have to be vetted by Jay, maybe people known amongst the forum (or other avenues) to be a good fit for the position. A simple approval system could be implemented from there, and if the Mentor Corps stayed manageably small, then I think it could police itself and keep out (or quickly remove) any bad apples.

I also totally dig your idea of a Siege Galaxy-maybe that’s a new thread to start a discussion on…

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I like this. When I was first learning the game, there was very little in terms of places to go to see and discuss a specific strategy. Maybe I just didn’t know where to go, but most of my information came from the general rules and mechanics page inside the game. I think it would be cool if these types of threads had a link to the actual game being discussed where you had the option to see a play by play. You could go back and start at the beginning of the game and there was a way to skip forward every tick or so and analyze each move every player did. The observer could, of course, see every star stat and ship count and walk himself through the game to get a sense of what strategies were being employed and how that effected the outcome.

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