Conquer Club

Started 50 games back in the summer and got them all filled out with players in maybe a day.

Started 50 games this morning and not a single player has joined a single game.

Are there less people playing these days or am I somehow being ignored by everyone lol?

It definitely seems CC is slowly dying, unfortunately. In some cases it's taking weeks to fill three or four slots in a game if, they fill at all. Even a year ago there would be three + pages of team games, now there's barely one page most days.

It was only a matter of time until team games died thought, that's what happens when you have no rank restrictions and you let the highest ranking people on the site join in the opposite side of a trips game against three privates. After a few ass stompings the new guys just quit playing and I can't blame them for that. I'm sure it's not a problem for clan players or those active on the forums here but for us "randoms" it's almost impossible to get a decent game these days.

It's really effecting the quality of games as well, I've never had as poor and uncommunicative teammates as I've had lately and even FFA games have little-to-no game chat. On very rare occasion does anyone even post "GG" anymore other then myself.

I know I won't be renewing my premium for the first time since I've been a member and honestly I probably won't make it another year here, the fun is just gone, now it seems to be all about rank and waiting.

kalishnikov wrote:
It was only a matter of time until team games died thought, that's what happens when you have no rank restrictions and you let the highest ranking people on the site join in the opposite side of a trips game against three privates. After a few ass stompings the new guys just quit playing and I can't blame them for that.

I think this is a really good point and is along the lines of what I was thinking. I'm inclined to believe that players trying to milk points by creating highly specialized games are just lying in wait, preying on those people who are setting up normal games and getting no action. Either that or people are just playing a lot of private games in which the competition is "point worthy" of their time. At any rate, I think you're right that point-seeking is ruining the environment for newcomers and long-time non-point seeking players alike. It will ultimately result in the collapse of the system as a whole.

Izual_Rebirth wrote:Are there less people playing these days or am I somehow being ignored by everyone lol?

my games fill pretty quickly. it must be you.

I limit most of my games to two players but have never had a problem finding opponents. The settings you use may have something to do with it? Some settings I would never even consider if I was looking for a game to join.

greenoaks wrote:

Izual_Rebirth wrote:Are there less people playing these days or am I somehow being ignored by everyone lol?

my games fill pretty quickly. it must be you.

No it's not me. Just had 30 of them full up today. Don't know why it took so long but have a lot of games now. Feel free to join some if you fancy a game.

Izual_Rebirth wrote:

greenoaks wrote:

Izual_Rebirth wrote:Are there less people playing these days or am I somehow being ignored by everyone lol?

my games fill pretty quickly. it must be you.

No it's not me. Just had 30 of them full up today. Don't know why it took so long but have a lot of games now. Feel free to join some if you fancy a game.

it's ok, i was only teasing.

we do have fewer players and we have more maps & more settings. we are spread out thinner than ever before & the foundry continues to make this situation worse.

damn you Foundry

Maybe more of the youth population are on a 2 1/2 month break in the summer and can be on CC more?

Why does everyone assume they are being preyed upon? I used to be a low rank without a clue. I then started to copy other higher ranks, made some friends, asked for advice and eventually got "good". I was then able to play many team games with people I know and trust. I enjoy the maps i play on and the different strategies I have learned to use on them.

Why don't other people take the initiative? P.M. a "high ranked player. Ask them questions. read their game logs and figure out what they do if you actually want to be good. Join their games, show your funny/nice in the game chat and ask to play with them. Lots of people don't mind helping others out to grow the cc community.

Remember everybody is a low rank at some point. No body knows everything. Trust me lol without my real life friend Zidane - 21 teaching me the basics I would have never gotten the enjoyment out of this website that I do today

jsnyder748 wrote:Why does everyone assume they are being preyed upon? I used to be a low rank without a clue. I then started to copy other higher ranks, made some friends, asked for advice and eventually got "good". I was then able to play many team games with people I know and trust. I enjoy the maps i play on and the different strategies I have learned to use on them.

Why don't other people take the initiative? P.M. a "high ranked player. Ask them questions. read their game logs and figure out what they do if you actually want to be good. Join their games, show your funny/nice in the game chat and ask to play with them. Lots of people don't mind helping others out to grow the cc community.

Remember everybody is a low rank at some point. No body knows everything. Trust me lol without my real life friend Zidane - 21 teaching me the basics I would have never gotten the enjoyment out of this website that I do today

And without this guy I wouldn't be where I am. And without me there are 1 or 2 players that would be as good as they are at certain maps either. A lot of people on here are willing to help teach. I know this isn't about low vs. high rank, and it shouldn't be since the OP really didn't say anything about that. But I would like to say there are many people on here that are higher rank that do also play for fun and not point preying

greenoaks wrote:

Izual_Rebirth wrote:

greenoaks wrote:

Izual_Rebirth wrote:Are there less people playing these days or am I somehow being ignored by everyone lol?

my games fill pretty quickly. it must be you.

No it's not me. Just had 30 of them full up today. Don't know why it took so long but have a lot of games now. Feel free to join some if you fancy a game.

it's ok, i was only teasing.

we do have fewer players and we have more maps & more settings. we are spread out thinner than ever before & the foundry continues to make this situation worse.

damn you Foundry

Ah someone else who thinks the foundry pumps out too many maps. Thank you

Cuz you live in the UK? Majority of players live in a different time zone, so maybe that explains it.

BigBallinStalin wrote:Cuz you live in the UK? Majority of players live in a different time zone, so maybe that explains it.

Yeah maybe. Well logged on this morning and now got most of my games full so that will keep me busy for a few months!

Also consider that many people will find your games straight from the 'Join a game' page. Perhaps there are actually more games these days, and therefore more pages of games in front of yours.

And the Join a Game page now groups similar games together. So 50 identical games might not stand out so much.

I think the proper expression is "FEWER player" and not "less players".

jsnyder748 wrote:Why does everyone assume they are being preyed upon? I used to be a low rank without a clue. I then started to copy other higher ranks, made some friends, asked for advice and eventually got "good". I was then able to play many team games with people I know and trust. I enjoy the maps i play on and the different strategies I have learned to use on them.

Why don't other people take the initiative? P.M. a "high ranked player. Ask them questions. read their game logs and figure out what they do if you actually want to be good. Join their games, show your funny/nice in the game chat and ask to play with them. Lots of people don't mind helping others out to grow the cc community.

Remember everybody is a low rank at some point. No body knows everything. Trust me lol without my real life friend Zidane - 21 teaching me the basics I would have never gotten the enjoyment out of this website that I do today

I don't think that the low rankers assume they are being preyed on but I assume a lot of them are being preyed on. It's just the settings I notice. What new player is going to willingly play a foggy freestyle game, I mean really, come on. I just looked at the waiting games list briefly to see if maybe I'm overreacting to all this but no, sure enough I see freestyle das Schloss and cricket games including Colonels, etc, filling up with non-premium cooks and privates. I'm sure those are going to be fun games for all! How much of that crap do you think a new player is going to tolerate before they say "f-this"?
Now I'm not trying to suggest that every higher ranked player is preying on innocents but there are surely enough of them out there to deter new people from becoming regulars here. Why should people have to be super-informed about all the pitfalls to be able to start enjoying their experience here?

Funkyterrance wrote:

jsnyder748 wrote:Why does everyone assume they are being preyed upon? I used to be a low rank without a clue. I then started to copy other higher ranks, made some friends, asked for advice and eventually got "good". I was then able to play many team games with people I know and trust. I enjoy the maps i play on and the different strategies I have learned to use on them.

Why don't other people take the initiative? P.M. a "high ranked player. Ask them questions. read their game logs and figure out what they do if you actually want to be good. Join their games, show your funny/nice in the game chat and ask to play with them. Lots of people don't mind helping others out to grow the cc community.

Remember everybody is a low rank at some point. No body knows everything. Trust me lol without my real life friend Zidane - 21 teaching me the basics I would have never gotten the enjoyment out of this website that I do today

I don't think that the low rankers assume they are being preyed on but I assume a lot of them are being preyed on. It's just the settings I notice. What new player is going to willingly play a foggy freestyle game, I mean really, come on. I just looked at the waiting games list briefly to see if maybe I'm overreacting to all this but no, sure enough I see freestyle das Schloss and cricket games including Colonels, etc, filling up with non-premium cooks and privates. I'm sure those are going to be fun games for all! How much of that crap do you think a new player is going to tolerate before they say "f-this"?
Now I'm not trying to suggest that every higher ranked player is preying on innocents but there are surely enough of them out there to deter new people from becoming regulars here. Why should people have to be super-informed about all the pitfalls to be able to start enjoying their experience here?

I suppose this is the point i'm trying to make. EACH game has weird settings for a reason. They are the settings that the higher rank uses to their advantage, but who is to say a low rank can't learn the settings and win? To this day I join random games that I have no clue what I am doing. I go in knowing there is a very high chance I will lose, but I have other games I play to counterbalance the loss.

For me if I was only having fun I would never join the das games or the cricket games when I was such a low rank unless I was wanting to learn. I would only have joined games i would deam as "fun". Like playing classic/doodle earth speed games. So when I look at the random low ranked people who play my games for instance I always assume they are watching how I play to get points later on. When they ask questions I answer them even if it helps them win (I don't care if i tell them how a map works giving away my strategy because I had the same questions years ago).

And what excuse do they have when they don't learn? Why do some cooks play me over and over again always leaving troops on the access point when it resets? I have found those are the people who don't care at all. I don't know what goes through their mind when they log into cc, but there can't be much they care about. So are those the people who are preyed upon? yes, but who wouldn't pray on someone when they don't even give it a chance?

jsnyder748 wrote:
I suppose this is the point i'm trying to make. EACH game has weird settings for a reason. They are the settings that the higher rank uses to their advantage, but who is to say a low rank can't learn the settings and win? To this day I join random games that I have no clue what I am doing. I go in knowing there is a very high chance I will lose, but I have other games I play to counterbalance the loss.

For me if I was only having fun I would never join the das games or the cricket games when I was such a low rank unless I was wanting to learn. I would only have joined games i would deam as "fun". Like playing classic/doodle earth speed games. So when I look at the random low ranked people who play my games for instance I always assume they are watching how I play to get points later on. When they ask questions I answer them even if it helps them win (I don't care if i tell them how a map works giving away my strategy because I had the same questions years ago).

And what excuse do they have when they don't learn? Why do some cooks play me over and over again always leaving troops on the access point when it resets? I have found those are the people who don't care at all. I don't know what goes through their mind when they log into cc, but there can't be much they care about. So are those the people who are preyed upon? yes, but who wouldn't pray on someone when they don't even give it a chance?

Ok. I'm not denying that all of what you are saying is true. The thing is, we are looking to figure out why there are less players/games filling up than there was 2 years ago or whatever. I suppose there will always be those players who don't care enough about the game to put the effort in but we've got to at least keep people interested enough to want to make any effort at all. When you first start here you poke around, try to get some games going with your paltry 4 game limit and get a general impression as to whether you want to stick around. It's in these early non-premium stages that a player decides if he/she really enjoys the site so it's critical that we make this time attractive. In general, newer/non-premium members are here for the action and the thrills. They are also impatient by nature(they'd be higher rank if they weren't ) so when they can't find a game to play in the list after say at the very least a day, they become desperate and join something, anything. When these games finally start they're disappointed. If you make the action, thrills and fun too difficult to obtain this critical group of people will simply become bored.

Funkyterrance wrote:Ok. I'm not denying that all of what you are saying is true. The thing is, we are looking to figure out why there are less players/games filling up than there was 2 years ago or whatever. I suppose there will always be those players who don't care enough about the game to put the effort in but we've got to at least keep people interested enough to want to make any effort at all. When you first start here you poke around, try to get some games going with your paltry 4 game limit and get a general impression as to whether you want to stick around. It's in these early non-premium stages that a player decides if he/she really enjoys the site so it's critical that we make this time attractive. In general, newer/non-premium members are here for the action and the thrills. They are also impatient by nature(they'd be higher rank if they weren't ) so when they can't find a game to play in the list after say at the very least a day, they become desperate and join something, anything. When these games finally start they're disappointed. If you make the action, thrills and fun too difficult to obtain this critical group of people will simply become bored.

Good point. I was a bit off topic. I see what you are saying now. If i didn't have a friend show me conquer club I would have probably given up. We should make it easier for really new people who are trying cc out to have a fun experience. Maybe the first four games new people play should be predetermined. Like a 1 v 1, six person escalating, a 4 player foggy flat rate game, and a freestyle game. To show them all the different options and get them used to playing different types.

There is a lot more we could do for new people to make it more inviting and exciting.

jsnyder748 wrote:Like a 1 v 1, six person escalating, a 4 player foggy flat rate game, and a freestyle game. To show them all the different options and get them used to playing different types.
There is a lot more we could do for new people to make it more inviting and exciting.

I think this is a great idea as long as either the games were made up entirely of newcomers or there were like various pop-ups that explained to newcomers what was happening(freestyle) so they would understand what the heck was going on and if they didn't like it they would at least know what to avoid. I like the former option better though since all these new players would have an even chance of winning since they would all be just learning. It just seems like a more fun way for new people to be introduced to Conquer Club. Not to mention an all newcomer game would be a safe haven from farmers.

Funkyterrance wrote:

jsnyder748 wrote:Like a 1 v 1, six person escalating, a 4 player foggy flat rate game, and a freestyle game. To show them all the different options and get them used to playing different types.
There is a lot more we could do for new people to make it more inviting and exciting.

I think this is a great idea as long as either the games were made up entirely of newcomers or there were like various pop-ups that explained to newcomers what was happening(freestyle) so they would understand what the heck was going on and if they didn't like it they would at least know what to avoid. I like the former option better though since all these new players would have an even chance of winning since they would all be just learning. It just seems like a more fun way for new people to be introduced to Conquer Club. Not to mention an all newcomer game would be a safe haven from farmers.

newcomers shouldn't be allowed to play freestyle, fog, trench. they should be kept on basic settings to go with their basic maps.

That is already partly implemented.

I think there should be more emphasis on classic games for non premium members. After all, that's probably the game type new members are here to play.

If they try and "join a game" and are faced with page after page of random complicated maps then they are probably going to end up joining a game, getting absolutely destroyed on a map they have no idea how to play and never come back. Either that or even worse, see the list of complicated maps and think "f*** this" and not even bother.

I think the "Join A Game" page should default just to showing Classic Maps with the default rules and then if you want to include all games you can do.

I appreciate you have the "game finder" but even after being a regular for just under six months I have no idea what half the map options mean or do so god knows what a noob would think. I also appreciate the long term vets are going to be all "well they can just check the help or visit the forum" but I'm coming from the view of making the site as accessible, intuitive and easy to use as possible for newcomers. Which I don't think it is at the moment.

greenoaks wrote:

Funkyterrance wrote:

jsnyder748 wrote:Like a 1 v 1, six person escalating, a 4 player foggy flat rate game, and a freestyle game. To show them all the different options and get them used to playing different types.
There is a lot more we could do for new people to make it more inviting and exciting.

I think this is a great idea as long as either the games were made up entirely of newcomers or there were like various pop-ups that explained to newcomers what was happening(freestyle) so they would understand what the heck was going on and if they didn't like it they would at least know what to avoid. I like the former option better though since all these new players would have an even chance of winning since they would all be just learning. It just seems like a more fun way for new people to be introduced to Conquer Club. Not to mention an all newcomer game would be a safe haven from farmers.

newcomers shouldn't be allowed to play freestyle, fog, trench. they should be kept on basic settings to go with their basic maps.

This is fine I suppose but eventually these newcomers are going to have to be introduced to these options and if they are learning against new players that's all the better. If they are introduced later then they will once again be at an extreme disadvantage once plopped in these setting. It's true of course that if they now are not newcomers we don't have to worry as much about them leaving but the farming issue remains just as strong. Why not give the newcomers a bit of armor for when they are let loose into the full version of CC instead of sending them into battle bare as they day they were born?

Another idea is how about tutorials or challenge maps against AI to get you used to the different game mechanics.

Just found out about WarLight and you can play single player on that and you have about 8 tutorial maps you can play. Each one teaches you about certain game play mechanics. Maybe something like that wold be useful?