Ways to bring in new players?

Battleborn Battleborn General Discussion
#22

Other random thoughts:

1. Demo version of the game. Which would allow you to play up to CR10 (only if a new tutorial/onboarding process is in place).

2. PSN. Make the game “free” through Playstation Plus for a month (though I’m sure getting a game on there is an ordeal).

3. Aggressively court the streaming / vlogging community. You don’t have to and shouldn’t pay them, but streamers love to feel like they have inside access to things, there are incentives you can throw their way that would be helpful. Give them a tour of the studio, invite them to a little private tournament, make them feel like Badasses.

4. More soft content. Note: I think this is something GBS is already working on. That being said, we need more events, more inducements to log in and play. This would be really helpful to get some of the people who are “bored” playing again. Clearly new missions are out of the question, but there are other fun things that can be done.

I think what might make these events really exciting is if they were story-driven, with a few snippets of dialogue (similar to Lore) that you could unlock if you participate.

5. Better support of the fan art community I love the Badass of the Week, but I think that more can be done to support the people creating art and doing cosplays and generally getting out there in front of the world with the game. I’d need to think about this more, but I just feel like there could be some great stuff there.

6. Expanding the world We want to know more about the story. We want to know more about the Lore. We want to feel a bit more immersed in the Universe. While this might be very difficult (time consuming), I really like the idea of being able to play the game with Guest Narrators who you can unlock. Instead of NOVA, you can get your PVP match narrated to you by Ghalt or Thorn or Ambra. You get to learn more about how they see the conflict, and what drives them to fight.

These additional voice packs could be unlocked via challenges in-game and perhaps, perish the thought (;)), platinum.

I love hearing the Lore Voice Recordings, and I really want you to expand the concept to give us more dialogue from our favorite Battleborn.

Lots of other solid ideas on this thread, but these are mine.

2 Likes
#23

More content. I still play this but I admit I’m getting bored doing the same campaign missions over and over. Pvp is an ok diversion to attempt to complete lore challenges but since campaign gives better loot rewards…
So yeah. Want a larger player base? Give us more content and more variety in what we’re fighting/doing.
I mean honestly only 8campaign maps (most are similar in appearance and activities) and two maps per pvp mode?
Really hope this campaign dlc adds 4-8 more campaign stages each. Also we’re going to need more than 30 playable battleborn. More modes for pve and pvp.

#24

Battleborn doesn’t need new players so much as it needs the people who bought the game to actually play.

If we look at the steamdb numbers, about 151k people own Battleborn on PC, but only about 46k of those people have actually played in the last two weeks. Of these 46k, the average playtime over two weeks is 7.5 hours, which is comes out to around 30 minutes a day. The median playtime is even lower than this at 2 hours over two weeks. People simply aren’t taking the time to sit down and play a game that they own. They are either booting up one story mission or PvP game a day then calling it quits.

Instead of simply focusing on bringing in new people, Gearbox needs to focus on things that will encourage people who currently own the game to log in and play more than maybe one story mission.

My suggestions would be:

  • Double XP Weekends twice a month
  • Better Credit and XP rewards for PvP participation
  • More info on the future characters and DLC missions
  • Random “Tavern Brawl” style events, like everyone starts the game at level 10 or everyone has to be Montana or a team of level 10 Ambras vs a teams of Alanis and Galileas who start a level 1.
  • Adjusting lore requirements (I know they have already said they are doing this)

I am of the opinion that Battleborn has a ton of potential, but there are a bunch of little things, like optimization, competitive play, and spectator features, that did not exist at launch which hurt it in the MOBA space. As these things get added, and the playerbase gets more experienced, I think Battleborn will grow slowly.

One major change I think would help a ton would be the addition of a traditional 3 lane MOBA style map in either the Incursion or Meltdown style or a combination of both. The current Incursion maps with their single lane feels very cramped, and the Metldown maps aren’t that much better. The action is hyper focused into certain areas with not much space for movement around. Really good teams in Metldown can essentially run 4-1 strategies because it is so easy to rotate from one lane to the other. Making a bigger map that could allow for more flanking could be really helpful.

#25

I do not Stream nor do I have a YouTube channel but I will continue to keep my friends updated when improvements to the game are made via patches/content updates. There are a few streamers that love the game and want it to succeed so I would hope they continue to make Battleborn videos letting everyone else know of the games direction.

#26

Nyahh, my post was more ment as a reminder that not only SP-holders payed money for BB, since I don´t understand why the SP-owners say “F2P is okay if I get my money back.” …I red it about 50 times in the forums and I simply don´t understand the idea. Maybe its just my brain, don´t know.

Personally: I payed 75€ and I´m still having a blast with this game. I´m only CR47, so I´ve still ALOT to do and I´ve spend my money very well. Its now 7 weeks full entertainment for under 100bucks. Thats amazingly cheap compared to other forms of entertainment (vacation, movies, ect.) and I´d never complain about the payed prize myself^^

Back to topic.
On XB1 theres a big influx of fresh blood since 3-4 weeks. I see LV.3-15 everywhere and daily income of new players. I think if GBX continues their great fast work & weekly updates the game will improve and more people will join automatically.
Just because BB had no dream launch with 15million sold copies, it does not mean its a dying game. Some things grow stronger over time.

1 Like
#27

Here is the simple truth: The game just isn’t that good to keep people invested in it long term. The game already had like a complete free week called the open beta. Gearbox said that two million players tried the game but only a small fraction actually bought the game. That alone wouldn’t be that bad but then the people who bought the game left it in droves even before queue times became an issue.
I know that this game has a few dedicated fan but you just won’t attract more players with the game as it is.

#28

I would have to partially agree. In it’s current state, I would not recommend people paying a premium price to play Battleborn. Get it on a sale? Absolutely. But paying $60 or $80 for the lack of certain features and optimizations is not ideal, unless you are willing to stay in for the long haul. So long as Gearbox continues to actively support the games development and balance I think Battleborn has a chance to grow slowly over the course of the year.

#29

At least on PC, the minimum and recommended specs are highly deceptive.

#30

I don’t know if it would be possible to bring back a significant number of players at this point even with a lot of new content. Videogames are one of the most competitive industries you can involve yourself in. The customers are notoriously finicky and opinionated. If you botch your release (which GBX did with their matchmaking) then that could very well be it for your game. Gamers have dozens of games they’re looking forward to coming out in the coming months and those games probably aren’t going to take a backseat to one they already stopped playing, unfortunately.

That’s why I don’t understand the concept of “patience” in relation to a videogames post-release quality. Customers don’t need to have patience in this industry. There’s always something else to play if a game you bought doesn’t work to your satisfaction. And once a player goes a few days, a few weeks, a few months without playing a game it’s so far from being in their thoughts that it might as well not even exist. Companies can’t afford to have the kind of issues GBX had with the release of this game if they want their product to be successful. The only thing harder than getting people to give your game a chance in this industry is to get people to give your game a second chance.

3 Likes
#31

It really depends on what Gearbox does going forward. EVE was almost considered a complete failure when it launched, but rose to over half a million subscribers in 2013.

DotA had a hardcore following while it was still a part of WC:III, but they were no-where near the numbers they have today where total active users routinely peaks 1 million.

Games can start out small and niche, but with dedicated dev support and a loyal fanbase can certainly grow as long as the fundamentals of the game are there, and I believe Battleborn certainly has some special potential especially with the Meltdown type games. It is following in the footsteps of Monday Night Combat and Super Monday Night Combat, but has the benefit of being backed by AAA development and publishing.

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#32

I’m not sure I’d use the phrase “following in the footsteps of Monday Night Combat” in an argument about keeping a game from dying. :stuck_out_tongue:

As for the publishing… that’s an area I don’t have a lot of faith in at all. They didn’t properly market the game pre-launch or during launch, so why would 2K start doing it now instead of just cutting their losses?

#33

At this point, I think the situation on the PC is so divorced from the Consoles, that we are almost talking about different games.

The PC seems to be having a really hard time, and while the Consoles have problems, they don’t seem to be anywhere near as large as the PC.

I wonder whether when discussing potential solutions, we should seperate the two a little more than we have?

1 Like
#34

At this point they might as well make it F2P. That would definitely bring in new players.

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#35

That’s brutal…

#36

Well look at my topic getting all these replies…brings a tear to my eye to see all these good ideas and discussions.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a Refer a Friend program akin to many other games…SMITE in particular comes to mind.

Dunno how the rewards would be given out but hey, it is a thought! Along with many of the ones that have been suggested so far. Just hope Gearbox is reading…I love BB :X I dun wanna see it suffer on PC.

#37

I like it.

Free weekend, this weekend, IMO.

Steam sale starts on Thursday, so setup a free trial weekend, and parlay that into a sale on Sunday. “You had fun, yes? Pick it up cheap”

And it could convince salty vets to come back and play with their friends.

#38

That’s a flagrant misuse of the word brutal.

That’s also not dollars. (Note the price on controllers)

#39

Hmm that is certainly true. I wonder where that pic is from then.

#40

Playing through each of the Campaign levels was more than enough for me.

While the matchmaking has been a bit slow, what they did in the last week completely broke it for me. The people I get matched with would have a hard time playing against bots.

Fix Matchmaking
Add Ranked Play
Remove level cap

Problems solved

#41

Well, Europe likes to swap commas for dots. And Aktion is German for, you guessed it, Action

But the euro is only 10-15% stronger than the dollar, so this might’ve been some massive sale. Does Germany have a Black Friday type holiday?