Atelier 801
Transformice 
| Regarding the state of the game |
 Stardust  « Citoyen » 1723534740000
| 0 | ||
| Before I Begin As someone who played the game a lot back when it was still popular, I’m highly dissatisfied with the way it is now. I'm no CEO or game dev, and I’m not making this post just to complain, I genuinely want the game to be popular and successful. Since this forum post features way too many different ideas, I decided to post it here instead of the Ideas forum. This is also meant to serve as a place for discussion about the community’s opinions on how or if the game should be changed. Game development is not easy The team is small and there isn’t enough money to add large updates regularly. So before anything else, it needs more players and more ways to earn money. People often find the game frustrating due to it being grindy and unfun. Humans like seeing numbers go up, it’s in their nature. If they don’t feel like they’re progressing enough, they’ll get bored quickly. Instead of the current system, we should have daily rewards, like a spinning wheel when you open up the game. Ways to temporarily boost cheese/xp gain in a similar way to the birthday event should be added too. These could be paid with fraises/irl money, or given out as rewards for doing other things like winning contests. Quests should be available at all times, and maybe to compensate, the rewards for them could be lowered. Fraises should be moved to the daily spin and other future methods to earn them. Speaking of fraises, as much as I’m a religiously f2p player, I would prefer to have more premium features/cosmetics over having way too many player friendly features that end up hurting the game and the company as a whole. There are other things that could earn the game money like optional ads that reward players with cheese and rarely fraises. Supporters that donate somewhere, like Patreon, could get perks, like a special nametag or early access to new features. Easier to produce merchandise like T-Shirts, mugs or mousepads could also be dropped occasionally. It doesn’t have to be just fraises. The gameplay is boring The way Transformice is built is flawed. Gamemodes are getting stale, the gameplay can be frustrating even to older players and it can often feel like the game isn’t changing at all. So, how can this be fixed then? The tutorial should be changed to feature more gameplay aspects, like being a shaman or easy wall/corner jump challenges. That way, new players don’t have to struggle as much or face bullying from others for being bad at the game. Many things need to be explained better. There needs to be a „/help” command to find a commands list. Certain features could be included in a „help” menu and the wiki could also be linked there so it’s easier to find. If a shaman item isn’t usable (like the heart, that can only be used after atleast one mouse has been saved), it should be displayed more clearly. This should ESPECIALLY be the case for things that are on a timer. Since translation is difficult to maintain, some options could have icons so it’s easier to figure out what they do if they’re not translated yet. I also feel like certain modules/game modes should reward the players more and they shouldn’t be punished for doing anything other than grinding the main game. Running to the cheese and getting back to the hole can get extremely tiring, especially when that’s essentially the only reliable method to get cc and even that can be slow. Creativity We need more cosmetics that aren’t references to other media. It makes it difficult to cosplay original characters and if this game were to be big, it would cause a lot of lawsuits, especially with stuff from bigger IPs. For mapmakers, there should be new types of ground added to allow for even better maps, like one way platforms, key doors, buttons that can make things appear or disappear etc. More ways to earn cheese Suggestions like this often get turned down for the same reason, „begging for free cheese”. As I previously mentioned, players often like seeing numbers go up and feeling like they’re progressing fast. In many games, that progress just an illusion to hide the grindiness of the game and to keep players satisfied so they won’t quit. Tfm doesn’t necessarily need to be made easier to 100%, far from it, it can follow the example of those games. All we need is the game to feel more rewarding, so it doesn’t just feel like we’re slaving away hours at a time, most of the earned cc being spent on collector items due to FOMO. Seeing that you basically haven’t progressed and can barely afford anything in the shop can really demotivate you, and I myself have quit several times because I felt like it just wasn’t worth playing all day for that. I’m not asking for currency to be given out like candy, I’m asking for the devs to be mindful of people’s health. Most, if not all people don’t have the time to play 24/7 for several days straight just so they can make a semi-okay fit and that’s why a lot of people just choose not to continue playing after trying the game out. Sure, making outfits easier to earn would result in having to add more monetization to the game to compensate, but most games nowadays are like that anyway. A game can have lots of paid content while not being predatory at the same time. I can understand why the developers wouldn’t want to go that route, but the way it is now isn’t better either. The game relies completely on volunteers because of this decision and I saw many players say that it should just be „put out of its misery”. Even though I’ve criticized Transformice a lot in this post, it all came from a place of love and concern. I would genuinely hate to see it die like DeadMaze or TFMA did and I honestly just miss the days when even obscure communities like HU got ~100 players. |
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Tribu Thisisnobody  « Citoyen » 1723562160000
| 1 | ||
Stardust a dit : I agree with all of these, especially the shaman tutorial, which is really needed. Stardust a dit : This can be an issue, but I guess there are only so many possible variations of the basic "you have to bring the cheese to the hole" premise. A big problem with the main game modes are the shaman skills, which are so overpowered that many shamans don't even bother to (learn to) build anymore - it's mostly just large plank > restorative > spring, making the gameplay quite boring. Even Melibellule once said that adding the skills to the game was a mistake: Transformice Wiki a dit : The modules increase the variety of game modes, but may be unattractive to players who care about their stats or collected cheese. Which brings me to... Stardust a dit : Stardust a dit : Stardust a dit : Stardust a dit : On the one hand, I agree that shop items are too expensive and the collector stuff is an all too obvious cash grab / attempt to get players to buy fraises. On the other hand, you don't HAVE to buy all these things. I think the main purpose of a game is to enjoy playing it. Saving up cheese for a particular item that you absolutely want to have is okay I guess, but of course a game - ANY game - will seem like a tedious grind if you only play to earn virtual currency to buy virtual clothes. If that's the only thing you do in game and you don't actually like the gameplay, and don't want to play more interesting game modes because they don't "pay" enough, then maybe you should find something better to do with your time. As for the state of the game, the one thing I would appreciate the most is communication from the developers (or someone familiar with the state of affairs) about things like bugs and potential new features. (In a place that's publicly accessible, like this forum, or even a development log in the game, not just on Discord or other places that require invites etc.) There have been lots of bugs reported here, or suggestions for new or improved features were made, and it would be nice to know whether the developers are aware of these things, and which of them (if any) they are working on. They and other staff members have been neglecting public places for information or discussion for years. For example, the bug list on the forum was last updated in 2016, and the "Announcements" forum has been dead for years except for fan art compilations and staff applications. One good place to start, I think, would be an in-game info area that lists the bugs the developers have been made aware of, and whether we can expect them to get fixed anytime soon. (There have been quite a few recently - problems with frequent freezes/disconnections, avatar upload, custom shaman items being invisible to some players, etc., and as of yet, it doesn't look like anything is being done about these and other issues; at least there hasn't been any feedback whatsoever.) |
Thisisnobody