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azurepudding

Member

Joined: 2016-11-18

Posts: 726

Are campaigns ruining EE?

Before campaigns began, the game was highly successful with 1,500 or so on at the busiest times, but since then, the online count has dropped significantly, now barely ever going over 30.  I do believe that there are a few factors that contribute to the fleeing players, but I'd like to put a focus on campaigns here. 

Here is how I see it: New players join the game and before they begin building, they want to play other levels to get an idea of what the game is about.  They're encouraged to start with the tutorial campaign to learn the basics and continue on to the next campaigns, playing until they reach a level too difficult for them to complete (or until all campaigns are beaten).  They get frustrated and/or bored.  There are no more campaigns for them to beat and so they stop playing the game, because there is no incentive to create your own worlds, but there ARE incentives to play campaigns to win rewards.  Campaigns are basically the "official" levels of the game, with building your own more of an afterthought, even though building was what the game originally was meant for.  It's like playing some game that features its own level editor- it may be fun to toy around with it, but you're gonna focus on the main game, right?  And when that's finished, you're likely to set the game down and move onto something else. 

We have so many campaigns now, to the point where the game relies so heavily on them that we get a new one almost every update just to keep players' attentions a little while longer.  But I feel this is just digging an even deeper hole as with every released campaign there is, the more difficult it becomes for players to create their own worlds. (It's also very, very questionable as to why we got another Extreme campaign, but anyway..)  As it stands, older, dedicated players (who were around before campaigns) are sticking around, but newer players (those after campaigns) don't tend to stay with the game, because campaigns feel like the core of the game now, and if no more can be done there, it's time for the next. 

I do think campaigns can be fun, especially with friends, but I'm not sure if the consequences are worth the benefits.  I mean, back when there were over a thousand players, there were so many people to meet, but now worlds are so empty.  You could even be on a campaign by yourself for awhile now.  The game's just so barren now, and I feel as if campaigns played a big part of it. 

Should new campaigns be discontinued?  Excluding holiday ones maybe?  Should campaigns be entirely removed?  Part of me would be sad if they were, but we also need what's best for the game.  EE was doing GREAT before with its high player count (which also means more fun levels to play), but it's so heartbreaking to see what's become of it.  For the game to stay healthy, it needs to welcome and maintain new players, which I feel campaigns do the opposite of the latter.  What do you think?

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Abelysk

Guest

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

The numbers now are similar to the numbers in 2013+.

My propsal is for campaigns to be temporary (week to a month).

Guest.

Guest

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

campaigns were meant to have people feel inclined to play levels instead of make levels like they did for a long time

however, now people only play levels and dont make them. theres no system equally as rewarding for making levels like there is with playing levels and campaigns other than that slim chance you will ever have of getting your level in a campaign

so to an extent, they are

Napakeun

Formerly goodsmile

From: Slo

Joined: 2015-02-22

Posts: 619

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

The way the campaign system is designed is kind of flawed so I never really liked them.
Campaign system should never happen if you ask me :/ Instead, there should be an advanced world searcher for offline worlds with ratings and user reviews etc. Not saying it's easy but this would be ideal probably...

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Joeyc

Guest

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

As of now campaigns right now, I feel like they're getting pretty stale. Your eventually gonna run out of good worlds since the game is so small. People don't feel like building and would rather just play worlds. Which honestly, is all I do. Plus for harder campaigns, you're basically throwing a new campaign at a newbie who really can't do anything with it. So mostly a useless update for them. As for pros It's something to do. After that, you pretty much have no reason to return.
Due to the amount of players right now. It's usually like 110. School etc. So you're throwing a campaign hard-extreme at a newbie when they first join.  They'll have to work there **** off just to win. Pretty much have no incentive to stay. Pointless updates once again. If you're actually going to update the game. I would probably say lets give new players, and old ones. Something to be able to do yet even if it's not a campaign.
I don't really think it'll inflict removing them now. You'll probably **** a lot of players off currently doing pf and bittersweet. lol

So.. I think they should be removed. Maybe you could add them back later or something.

Still waiting on that video game campaign that Megalamb talked about in June 2017.

LukeM

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From: England

Joined: 2016-06-03

Posts: 3,009

Website

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

'[player count] barely ever going over 30.'

Please stop...
Currently there are over double that many people online, I'd say it barely ever goes *under* 30

And I don't think campaigns are damaging the game overall, although I do agree with some of your points I still think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
The way I see it, creating your own worlds / playing other people's worlds is still the main focus of the game, and campaigns are more like side-quests (as they are hidden in a side menu while online worlds are the main focus of the lobby)

azurepudding

Member

Joined: 2016-11-18

Posts: 726

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

The numbers now are similar to the numbers in 2013+.

My propsal is for campaigns to be temporary (week to a month).

Dunno on that, or do you mean there won't be a new campaign directly after?

As of now campaigns right now, I feel like they're getting pretty stale. Your eventually gonna run out of good worlds since the game is so small. People don't feel like building and would rather just play worlds. Which honestly, is all I do. Plus for harder campaigns, you're basically throwing a new campaign at a newbie who really can't do anything with it. So mostly a useless update for them. As for pros It's something to do. After that, you pretty much have no reason to return.
Due to the amount of players right now. It's usually like 110. School etc. So you're throwing a campaign hard-extreme at a newbie when they first join.  They'll have to work there **** off just to win. Pretty much have no incentive to stay. Pointless updates once again. If you're actually going to update the game. I would probably say lets give new players, and old ones. Something to be able to do yet even if it's not a campaign.
I don't really think it'll inflict removing them now. You'll probably **** a lot of players off currently doing pf and bittersweet. lol

So.. I think they should be removed. Maybe you could add them back later or something.

Still waiting on that video game campaign that Megalamb talked about in June 2017.

I got nothing against extreme levels, it's just weird how that shouldn't be of any focus I think until the game gets up and running again. 

What I enjoyed a lot were the updates with a smaller world to play, during the MrShoe era and awhile after with slightly bigger worlds.  It was something new to play, but small enough that it didn't hog all the attention from other worlds.  I'd love one of those over a new campaign.

'[player count] barely ever going over 30.'

Please stop...
Currently there are over double that many people online, I'd say it barely ever goes *under* 30

And I don't think campaigns are damaging the game overall, although I do agree with some of your points I still think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
The way I see it, creating your own worlds / playing other people's worlds is still the main focus of the game, and campaigns are more like side-quests (as they are hidden in a side menu while online worlds are the main focus of the lobby)

It WAS under 30 for quite awhile.  But ok, it's at about 50-60 now.  When it used to be 1,500 or more. 

And yeah.. but usually campaign world tags flood the online list (strangely not as I type this.. but that's a good thing, the last few times I looked about 75% of worlds online were campaigns), and once you find out about them, you'll probably focus on them.  I just think there shouldn't be so much incentive to play campaigns, because the game relies on its players to make their own.

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Abelysk

Guest

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

Dunno on that, or do you mean there won't be a new campaign directly after?

It depends. So let's say a Retro Campaign is out for a week. It disappears. Two weeks later another campaign comes out. This time it lasts for three weeks. Then it disappears. There is then a month hiatus and another week-long campaign is released. Repeat.

The reason behind this philosophy is players will undergo "phases" where they can choose to incline towards playing through the campaign and taking a break. Their break will last long enough for them to be able to make their own worlds, until the next campaign releases where the players can try their fingers once again.

Also, campaigns won't be deleted forever. Let's say Fractured Fingers appears four (or three, or two, or even one time every year). Something like that.

hummerz5

Member

From: wait I'm not a secret mod huh

Joined: 2015-08-10

Posts: 5,853

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

to be honest I love discussing this sort of topic but I really don't think anyone here has any concrete evidence as to why EE did the slump. Just because you and a handful of people don't like campaigns doesn't mean the silent majority of users that drop EE after their first plays dislike them.

so there's almost no point to debating it if we can't actually ask the folks involved but we can't ask them because they always leave.

"oh by the way, before you close this tab, could you fill out a quick questionnaire about your visit?"

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Joeyc

Guest

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

"oh by the way, before you close this tab, could you fill out a quick questionnaire about your visit?"

Was your visit in this topic good? Yes 5/5 raccoon's

Tomahawk

Forum Mod

From: UK

Joined: 2015-02-18

Posts: 2,847

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

How about a cheat-proof way of rewarding players that build popular worlds?

For instance, the owner could get X amount of energy or max energy or gems or whatever for every Y number of plays or time spent in their world.

Or perhaps campaigns are the future, and instead players should be rewarded if their world becomes a campaign, therefore motivating them to build levels. Rather than suggesting new campaigns on the forums, players can mark their worlds as “campaign submissions” on EE. The community plays through the list of submitted campaigns and collectively votes for the ones they want to be added.

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Joeyc

Guest

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

How about a cheat-proof way of rewarding players that build popular worlds?

For instance, the owner could get X amount of energy or max energy or gems or whatever for every Y number of plays or time spent in their world.

Or perhaps campaigns are the future, and instead players should be rewarded if their world becomes a campaign, therefore motivating them to build levels. Rather than suggesting new campaigns on the forums, players can mark their worlds as “campaign submissions” on EE. The community plays through the list of submitted campaigns and collectively votes for the ones they want to be added.

That's so stupid, especially since a bunch of garbage sneaked there way into energy from AC
You're basically bribing players to build good worlds.

azurepudding

Member

Joined: 2016-11-18

Posts: 726

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

Dunno on that, or do you mean there won't be a new campaign directly after?

It depends. So let's say a Retro Campaign is out for a week. It disappears. Two weeks later another campaign comes out. This time it lasts for three weeks. Then it disappears. There is then a month hiatus and another week-long campaign is released. Repeat.

The reason behind this philosophy is players will undergo "phases" where they can choose to incline towards playing through the campaign and taking a break. Their break will last long enough for them to be able to make their own worlds, until the next campaign releases where the players can try their fingers once again.

Also, campaigns won't be deleted forever. Let's say Fractured Fingers appears four (or three, or two, or even one time every year). Something like that.

I'm not sure.. I think maybe the extreme ones should stay year round?  Because they can take a really long time to beat, and if you're on the last tier and then it goes away.. it could be frustrating.

to be honest I love discussing this sort of topic but I really don't think anyone here has any concrete evidence as to why EE did the slump. Just because you and a handful of people don't like campaigns doesn't mean the silent majority of users that drop EE after their first plays dislike them.

so there's almost no point to debating it if we can't actually ask the folks involved but we can't ask them because they always leave.

"oh by the way, before you close this tab, could you fill out a quick questionnaire about your visit?"

I didn't say I dislike campaigns, and the question isn't if new players like campaigns, but instead if campaigns drive off new players as they take attention away from the building aspect of the game.  A new player might love the campaigns, but when they finish, or can't beat them anymore, they leave, as the game feels completed, or completed enough.  With only incentives to play, and none to build, it makes sense players will spend more time playing campaigns than build their own.  And even then, why play a non-campaign world, if there's a campaign world you can play and get a reward for it?  Of course, fun should be reason enough, but if you can have fun either way, and if one gives you a reward, which do you think new players will tend to play?

EE's two biggest problems are attracting and maintaining new players.  I feel campaigns keep newbies around short term, but we need something long term.

How about a cheat-proof way of rewarding players that build popular worlds?

For instance, the owner could get X amount of energy or max energy or gems or whatever for every Y number of plays or time spent in their world.

Or perhaps campaigns are the future, and instead players should be rewarded if their world becomes a campaign, therefore motivating them to build levels. Rather than suggesting new campaigns on the forums, players can mark their worlds as “campaign submissions” on EE. The community plays through the list of submitted campaigns and collectively votes for the ones they want to be added.

One problem I find with that is, not all worlds are meant for campaigns.  Such as music worlds, boss worlds, bot worlds, art worlds, etc.  It would encourage players to build one type of world when all types of worlds should be welcomed.

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Muftwin

Member

Joined: 2015-02-27

Posts: 535

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

Is this a joke topic? Nearly everything you wrote is the opposite of the truth. I dont even know where to start. lemme just put some of the more obvious examples i guess.

[Implying Immediately]Before campaigns began, the game was highly successful with 1,500 or so on at the busiest times

building your own [levels is] more of an afterthought

with every released campaign there is, the more difficult it becomes for players to create their own worlds.

Imo if nou never made campaigns the game would be offline by now.

How about a cheat-proof way of rewarding players that build popular worlds?

This is the worst thing that could possibly happen. with this instead of building and playing levels the whole game would revolve around exploiting the system in place to get views. Im sure you know what clickbait is. An algorithm can not ever be a judge of creative content. I think what we need is a speedrun mode. This would create limitless amounts of content. The weaker players would feel inclined to play each campaign world serveral times instead of just one, and better players would really enjoy finding new strats and optimizing the levels.

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azurepudding

Member

Joined: 2016-11-18

Posts: 726

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

Is this a joke topic? Nearly everything you wrote is the opposite of the truth. I dont even know where to start. lemme just put some of the more obvious examples i guess.

[Implying Immediately]Before campaigns began, the game was highly successful with 1,500 or so on at the busiest times

building your own [levels is] more of an afterthought

with every released campaign there is, the more difficult it becomes for players to create their own worlds.

Imo if nou never made campaigns the game would be offline by now.

It isn't.  I was there when the game had well over a thousand players, all before campaigns, which are probably the biggest change to EE.  Note that I didn't claim they alone were the problem EE's been facing for awhile now.  They are a short-term solution to promote activity, but we need something long-term.

How about a cheat-proof way of rewarding players that build popular worlds?

This is the worst thing that could possibly happen. with this instead of building and playing levels the whole game would revolve around exploiting the system in place to get views. Im sure you know what clickbait is. An algorithm can not ever be a judge of creative content. I think what we need is a speedrun mode. This would create limitless amounts of content. The weaker players would feel inclined to play each campaign world serveral times instead of just one, and better players would really enjoy finding new strats and optimizing the levels.

Wouldn't that keep people playing campaigns even more?  We need less emphasis on campaigns, and more focus on players building their own and playing others' worlds, not just moderator-approved worlds.

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Muftwin

Member

Joined: 2015-02-27

Posts: 535

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

ah that post is much easier to argue with

I was there when the game had well over a thousand players

campaigns were released august 20th 2015 (~2yrs ago) there hasnt ever been 1500 people online in atleast 5 years trying to correlate the 2 is RIDICULOUS Obviously the real point the game crashed was when mrshoe went on his summer vacation.

We need less emphasis on campaigns, and more focus on players ... playing others' worlds

Campaign worlds are other players worlds

we need something long-term

Propose something. Try it. I just did. This thread is worthless unless you do.

Also ru admitting my other 2 statements I called you on that you didnt respond to are indeed false as frick?

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azurepudding

Member

Joined: 2016-11-18

Posts: 726

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

ah that post is much easier to argue with

I was there when the game had well over a thousand players

campaigns were released august 20th 2015 (~2yrs ago) there hasnt ever been 1500 people online in atleast 5 years trying to correlate the 2 is RIDICULOUS Obviously the real point the game crashed was when mrshoe went on his summer vacation.

We need less emphasis on campaigns, and more focus on players ... playing others' worlds

Campaign worlds are other players worlds

we need something long-term

Propose something. Try it. I just did. This thread is worthless unless you do.

Also ru admitting my other 2 statements I called you on that you didnt respond to are indeed false as frick?

I can't really counter something if all you say to my points is that they are false.  You need to counter first so I can counter back.

I also stated a few times that campaigns aren't the only issue, but play a significant role.  Another main issue is that EE needs to attract more players.  Better use of twitter or facebook or something.  People can't join a game if they don't know about it.

Campaign worlds are indeed other players' worlds but that is not what I was meaning there.  They are moderator-approved worlds that get special attention over others, so players are more likely to play a campaign world than a non-campaign world.  Why do some worlds give rewards while others do not?  For what reason?  Why not treat both worlds equally, so players can choose which to play, and not be persuaded by rewards and badges?  Doesn't that go against what EE was always about?  Beat my level and get 15 gems, or play this other dude's world and get nothing?  Why?

It's not a useless thread as it's asking for the opinions of the community, and EE being a sandbox game, is heavily reliant on its community.  If enough people show dislike of campaigns, then clearly one proposal could be to remove campaigns.

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Master1

Member

From: Crait

Joined: 2015-02-15

Posts: 4,452

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

This argument is literally the exact opposite reason of why we added campaigns in the first place lmao. Back in 2015 we noticed that the only people being rewarded for their work were the builders, players needed something to feel GOOD about as well.

H O W E V E R

I don't agree with this entirely as getting your worlds campaigned is reason enough to try and build a good map.

B U T

I do think there could be a little more balance to this; maybe more frequent building contests or something (?)

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Emma333

Member

From: The Netherlands

Joined: 2015-04-16

Posts: 589

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

I doubt that’s the actual reason new players are leaving. Yesterday I was talking with a new player who was shocked about the edgyness and negativity a lot of players have. He wasn’t able to talk to anyone but me because everyone was being rude or ignored him. Getting to know the community is a must if you want to play the game for a long while, because otherwise it will become boring with or without campaigns. When no one wants to talk to you or calls you out for being a noob there’s no reason to keep playing the game. The community has been like this for a while and I know some people have tried to change it, but that’s so hard to do.

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Napakeun

Formerly goodsmile

From: Slo

Joined: 2015-02-22

Posts: 619

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

I doubt that’s the actual reason new players are leaving. Yesterday I was talking with a new player who was shocked about the edgyness and negativity a lot of players have. He wasn’t able to talk to anyone but me because everyone was being rude or ignored him. Getting to know the community is a must if you want to play the game for a long while, because otherwise it will become boring with or without campaigns. When no one wants to talk to you or calls you out for being a noob there’s no reason to keep playing the game. The community has been like this for a while and I know some people have tried to change it, but that’s so hard to do.

That's what I noticed too, similar thing on the forums.

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Nou

Member

Joined: 2015-02-24

Posts: 2,762

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

The 1500 players online and campaigns has about 3 years in between; you're trying to make it seem like campaigns caused the player count to dwindle while (along with the other updates) it caused the player coint to go from ~50 to ~250-300 average.

No new players are coming in and it's easy to blame something for it, but that doesn't mean that's the actual core of the problem. You can say the same for plenty other aspects; such as the toxicity of the community, as Emma333 points out:

I doubt that’s the actual reason new players are leaving. Yesterday I was talking with a new player who was shocked about the edgyness and negativity a lot of players have. He wasn’t able to talk to anyone but me because everyone was being rude or ignored him. Getting to know the community is a must if you want to play the game for a long while, because otherwise it will become boring with or without campaigns. When no one wants to talk to you or calls you out for being a noob there’s no reason to keep playing the game. The community has been like this for a while and I know some people have tried to change it, but that’s so hard to do.

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drunkbnu

Formerly HG

Joined: 2017-08-16

Posts: 2,306

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

azurepudding

Member

Joined: 2016-11-18

Posts: 726

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

Am I just missing all these mean and edgy people then?  When I play almost everyone is really nice, usually anyone I have a problem with is someone on the forums or discord, and that's like one person every few weeks or so. 

Before campaigns, wasn't the huge drop due to no updates for awhile?  And now that updates are back (along with campaigns), the player count has yet to return to what it was originally.  So maybe the initial drop of players wasn't due to campaigns, campaigns may be a cause of why EE hasn't seen over 100 since forever.

About rewarding players for playing- this may not be a popular opinion but I thought the MrShoe magic coin system did well enough on that.  It rewarded players for playing ANY world (as long as it had coins).  Not just a select few chosen by the moderators.  And, face it, extra energy or a new world from campaign rewards aren't all that more valuable than an increase to a magic counter.  As silly as it sounds, it did keep people playing for awhile.  People wanted to be level 12, and get that flashy golden badge.  But now we have a badge system that only promotes certain levels rather than all levels.  Why was it decided that certain levels should be worth playing more than others?  This hurts EE.

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LukeM

Member

From: England

Joined: 2016-06-03

Posts: 3,009

Website

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

About rewarding players for playing- this may not be a popular opinion but I thought the MrShoe magic coin system did well enough on that.  It rewarded players for playing ANY world (as long as it had coins).  Not just a select few chosen by the moderators.

Thats actually quite a good point, although im my opinion (I left during this period) it felt too much like it was trying to force you to play every day. More common magic coins does sound like a good idea though, possibly just giving something like energy (not max), leaving the magic blocks and max energy for rarer coins.

...EE hasn't seen over 100 since forever.

(it was around 120 when I was playing earlier today...)

azurepudding

Member

Joined: 2016-11-18

Posts: 726

Re: Are campaigns ruining EE?

About rewarding players for playing- this may not be a popular opinion but I thought the MrShoe magic coin system did well enough on that.  It rewarded players for playing ANY world (as long as it had coins).  Not just a select few chosen by the moderators.

Thats actually quite a good point, although im my opinion (I left during this period) it felt too much like it was trying to force you to play every day. More common magic coins does sound like a good idea though, possibly just giving something like energy (not max), leaving the magic blocks and max energy for rarer coins.

...EE hasn't seen over 100 since forever.

(it was around 120 when I was playing earlier today...)

Well, dang, exactly 100 right now.  That's pretty awesome.  Lately every time I check it's like 30-50.  But..!  It's still no where near what it used to be, but it's good to see more players right now!

As for the magic coins, I think eventually they got rid of the magic decay?  Which was a needed change I think, so you didn't feel paranoid of your level dropping.  I kinda miss it tho, it was kind of a cute idea.  If it returns you could get a little reward for every level up maybe.  So that it wouldn't only be a number increase and badge.

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