How we make our game accessible for new players
It's our goal. It's in our veins. We want it to happen. We believe that we can bring the real-time strategy genre back into everyone's shelves. No doubt about it, that requires a lot of hard work and focus. In todays blog I'd love to share our thoughts on how we want to bring new players to the genre.
While the reasons for losing in other genres are easier to understand, in an RTS, reasons for losing can have multiple layers. One doesn't just had a faster aim on your head or casted the better spell. In an RTS, it could already be over if you don't scout. Or don't know how to scout. Or don't know how to counter the units of the opponent ect. ect. We believe that it is very hard to learn and understand an RTS game. And that is why it is so hard for new players to find their way into this genre. We want to change that with A Year Of Rain.
We're a team-RTS
Take a look at how your team mate plays. Looking, copying and trying is a valid way of improving your own skills. Many of our game modes are set up for 2 versus 2 matches, so you never play alone. Don't worry about your team mate. If he has a higher skill, he will be getting a bonus on XP at the end of the match for being a role model for you through the game. If your opponents are ranked higher in the game, you both are also getting a so-called Underdog bonus for playing against more experienced players.
Build Order Guides help you through the match
You're not completely depending on learning from your team mate. At the beginning of the match, we offer you different Build Order Guides to follow. They vary on the chosen role you'd like to play and list actions we recommend you to fulfill your role. We plan to offer multiple Build Order Guides for multiple playstyles in-game. There is no need to search for those online anymore.
Tips and Hints
We're working on an intelligent hint system that analyses your gameplay and gives you tips and hints after the match on what you can improve. This is a complex thing to do, but we're taking on the challenge.
Watch a replay of your matches
Your matches will be saved as replays. Through an ingame menu, you'll be able to watch your matches again from a Spectator perspective to analyse what happened and to take a closer look at what your team mates did.
Fair matchmaking procedure
We aim for a fair matchmaking. We sort players into leagues and tiers. Advanced players will play in higher leagues. Your opponents will be just about right for you to play against.
That much for our current plan. We're sure there is much more we could do. If you like, let us know more ideas to improve onboarding of new players. Write us in the comments below, in our Steam Hub or in Discord.
All that doesn't mean that A Year Of Rain is boring for existing RTS fans. In our next blog, we'll take a look at how we cater existing RTS fans with A Year Of Rain.
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https://store.steampowered.com/app/319540/A_Year_Of_Rain/
Until next time.
The A Year Of Rain Team