It's not news that our minigames are not as popular as they used to be, but it does go beyond our lower playercount. I wanted to adress that in this topic.

Good and bad design
First off, I should explain the terms I use. Simply put, a minigame should have a clear objective that will win or lose you the match. People should be rewarded for playing towards that objective. If it is present, it's good design. If it is absent, it's bad design.

Knowing that, let's take a look at our minigames.

Castle wars
It does have a clear objective, which is carrying 5 of the opposing team's flags before they do. It is a big improvement from the past, when we had 10 minutes to carry as many flags as we could. It might be an interesting idea to lower it to one flag, which would make the game more fast paced and puts a lot more pressure on both teams. This idea does come with it's flaws though, I'd say the objective is fine as is.

There is very little reward to actually playing the objective, however. Killing an enemy holding a flag only results in 1/5th of an extra ticket, exactly the same as you would get for killing someone not holding a flag. Any efforts made to stall or delay the enemy team just waste everyone's time, the defending team doesn't get rewarded for it. Successfully carrying a flag only gives you one extra ticket. This lack of reward for playing the objective is a driving factor behind all the people that afk at CW.

Pest control
You either kill all the portals to win, or your knight dies and you lose. It's a pretty clear objective.

The rewards however, don't line up with it at all. The amount of tickets you recieve is a base amount and an amount based on the damage you dealt in total. Given the fact that this damage can be to just about anything, it encourages farming for damage. There is a cap to the amount of damage you get tickets for, but this does not help at all. Farmers are often frustrated at people playing the minigame as it is intended to be played and it usually ends up with a flame war, this is the core negative aspect of farming. Defending the knight isn't rewarded, doing damage to the portals isn't rewarded, so people farm the load of creatures that spawn but don't actually threaten anything.

Rewards
Something both minigames lack is a reward you can turn into cash quite easily. Since edgeville teleports are kind of in demand, why not put them in the shops? (and make them tradable via GE too)

Both minigames should be playable with minimum of 2 players. Also, enable joining mid-game. CW AFKers shouldn't be punished for what they are doing because without them the minigame would had died even earlier than it did. Keep the minigames gameplay-wise as they are, they are perfectly fine in that regard.

Yeah as Otto said its keep it like that and make 2 players minimum to play, the only bad thing in minigame only low players..

plus add double-ticket weekends.

Yeah as Otto said its keep it like that and make 2 players minimum to play, the only bad thing in minigame only low players..

plus add double-ticket weekends.

every single weekend seems abit too much for me, i'd rather have it 4-6 hours on a Saturday or Sunday

And to get back onto the designs, minigames are fine imo its just the lack of players that play minigames

Add bosses to cw and remove flags system ffs.

Add bosses to cw and remove flags system ffs.

Bosses would make the game a lot more gear reliant than it already is. It would also slow down the pace of the game. You're also most likely driven by nostalgia. No thanks.

Quote from: Dabaus on February 21, 2017, 10:25:16 am

Add bosses to cw and remove flags system ffs.

Bosses would make the game a lot more gear reliant than it already is. It would also slow down the pace of the game. You're also most likely driven by nostalgia. No thanks.

Go to CoD multiplayer -> check players online in each game mode -> see how team deathmatch has 100x more players than capture flag -> realize that people prefer killing shit over capturing shit.

Waving the ''driven by nostalgia'' card in this case is the shittiest possible argument here.

Pest Control

It is good the way it is. The shop is acceptable, plus we have double tickets once and awhile. We can see that PS is played more than castle wars.


Castel Wars

Needs to be improved. The objective of it sucks, turning it from capturing the flag to killing the boss is a great idea. This way will turn the game into a war and everyone wants that. low players will defend with the players who want to level up magic, rangers will be on the top and defending players in the field, and some melee we will attacking the enemy by killing the boss.
If you did this and want the attention of the players, Thomy could join us for the first 2 games. They also could add 1 new item in the shop or just improve it.

Castel Wars

Needs to be improved. The objective of it sucks, turning it from capturing the flag to killing the boss is a great idea. This way will turn the game into a war and everyone wants that. low players will defend with the players who want to level up magic, rangers will be on the top and defending players in the field, and some melee we will attacking the enemy by killing the boss.
If you did this and want the attention of the players, Thomy could join us for the first 2 games. They also could add 1 new item in the shop or just improve it.

I agree that CW needs change, but adding new items isn't one of them. I also agree to change the flag system back to the boss system and also minimum 2 players, as currently, it's extremely annoying to farm brawling gloves although downside would be easier leveling of skills. About the boss, I disagree with that it would lower the pace of the game because back in the day it was bosses health was dependent on how many players were in the minigame, more players, stronger the boss. So with 2 players only, bosses wouldn't be that strong and game pace would be still acceptable, although with 2 players you'll get fewer tickets and more players you get more tickets as bosses are much stronger.
Rewards are good as they currently are, brawling gloves are an amazing feature, so I wouldn't recommend changing any of that.
Skill

We need to add more rewards that Iron Man's accounts can't obtain unless they play those mini-games. a thing that will make mini-games active more often, in the Pest Control it's not necessary but in Castle-Wars it is.

In Castle-Wars there's only Ava's worth playing for, to be honest...

I also agree to change the flag system back to the boss system

The boss system makes the minigame more gear reliant, that's not something I would want.

We need to add more rewards that Iron Man's accounts can't obtain unless they play those mini-games. a thing that will make mini-games active more often, in the Pest Control it's not necessary but in Castle-Wars it is.

In Castle-Wars there's only Ava's worth playing for, to be honest...

Literally everything in the minigame reward shops are things ironmen can't obtain unless they play minigames.

Brawler gloves are absolutely amazing for people wanting to get up certain skills. God d'hides are an easy way of getting some decent range gear and are also needed for clue scrolls. Initiate has pretty good prayer bonus, would be decent for ironmen too. Helm of neitiznot is a good melee helmet. There is plenty of stuff in the CW rewards shop, ava is definitely not the only thing worth playing for.

This topic is not about the reward shops, it's about how minigames reward you tickets for the stuff you do inside the minigames.

Quote from: Skill0wzer on March 06, 2017, 09:29:00 pm

I also agree to change the flag system back to the boss system

The boss system makes the minigame more gear reliant, that's not something I would want.

Every noob playing this game has an Anger baxe. It's also already gear reliant to get through the ice barraging magers.

I think the minigame rewards should also be attainable in some other way also (slayer points etc). Sometimes doing minigames to get items as an ironman can be a pain, as you can't just buy the items from ge. Another possibility is to lower the required player count and increase the ticket count.