DUST Search - Sticky:What's going on with the Battle Academy?

CCP Greyscale wrote:

UPDATE 22-08-13: At downtime today we'll be increasing the Academy WP cap from 1500 to 2000, again to check out the metrics impact. We'll also be changing from Domination to Skirmish, so that we have solid numbers on all three game modes.

As with last week's change, characters who log in after downtime and have scored between 1500 and 2000 War Points in their career to date will find themselves back in the Academy, which they'll leave (again!) when they accumulate 2000 total lifetime WP.

UPDATE 15-08-13: At downtime today we'll be increasing the Academy WP cap from 400 to 1500, to see what impact this has on our metrics.

Characters who log in after downtime and have scored between 400 and 1500 War Points in their career to date will find themselves back in the Academy, which they'll leave (again!) when they accumulate 1500 total lifetime WP.

Hi there Mercenaries,

So as many of you noticed, we made some adjustments to the Battle Academy (the new player battle queue) in Uprising 1.3 last week. Today, you'll notice in the patchnotes that we're adjusting it again. If you're reading this thread, it's probably because you're interested in knowing why, so let me try and explain Smile

The short version is that we're trying to figure out exactly what works, in terms of giving new players the best experience possible.

In 1.3, we did an experiment to see what effect giving new players the simplest possible game mode would have, by moving the Academy to a 16-player Ambush map. Our provisional conclusion is "new players don't really like super-simple game modes", so today we're switching the Academy queue over to 32-player Domination. This adds more players, and takes the experience closer to the "full-fat" Skirmish mode while still (hopefully!) keeping the game flow easily comprehensible.

We're also adjusting the War Point total you need to accumulate in order to graduate from the Academy, down to 400 War Points. This didn't seem like a very large number to most of us here, but our metrics suggest the median new player is scoring about 100 WP per battle, so this has them graduating from the Academy after probably 3-5 battles (with better players graduating sooner and less able ones staying longer, of course). Once graduated, players are free to join any of the normal game modes.

This is an ongoing experiment, so we're expecting to make further changes in the coming weeks, to try out new theories and home in on the best experience. Happily, we've got a reasonably comprehensive set of metrics tracking retention and so on, so we have a pretty good overview of the trends involved.

If you have any questions, please ask away and I'll try and answer as best I can.

Cheers,
-Greyscale


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Yokal Bob Gravity Prone EoN. 162	Posted - 2013.08.25 13:04:00 - [1] - Quote CCP Greyscale wrote: UPDATE 22-08-13: At downtime today we'll be increasing the Academy WP cap from 1500 to 2000, again to check out the metrics impact. We'll also be changing from Domination to Skirmish, so that we have solid numbers on all three game modes. As with last week's change, characters who log in after downtime and have scored between 1500 and 2000 War Points in their career to date will find themselves back in the Academy, which they'll leave (again!) when they accumulate 2000 total lifetime WP. UPDATE 15-08-13: At downtime today we'll be increasing the Academy WP cap from 400 to 1500, to see what impact this has on our metrics. Characters who log in after downtime and have scored between 400 and 1500 War Points in their career to date will find themselves back in the Academy, which they'll leave (again!) when they accumulate 1500 total lifetime WP. Hi there Mercenaries, So as many of you noticed, we made some adjustments to the Battle Academy (the new player battle queue) in Uprising 1.3 last week. Today, you'll notice in the patchnotes that we're adjusting it again. If you're reading this thread, it's probably because you're interested in knowing why, so let me try and explain The short version is that we're trying to figure out exactly what works, in terms of giving new players the best experience possible. In 1.3, we did an experiment to see what effect giving new players the simplest possible game mode would have, by moving the Academy to a 16-player Ambush map. Our provisional conclusion is "new players don't really like super-simple game modes", so today we're switching the Academy queue over to 32-player Domination. This adds more players, and takes the experience closer to the "full-fat" Skirmish mode while still (hopefully!) keeping the game flow easily comprehensible. We're also adjusting the War Point total you need to accumulate in order to graduate from the Academy, down to 400 War Points. This didn't seem like a very large number to most of us here, but our metrics suggest the median new player is scoring about 100 WP per battle, so this has them graduating from the Academy after probably 3-5 battles (with better players graduating sooner and less able ones staying longer, of course). Once graduated, players are free to join any of the normal game modes. This is an ongoing experiment, so we're expecting to make further changes in the coming weeks, to try out new theories and home in on the best experience. Happily, we've got a reasonably comprehensive set of metrics tracking retention and so on, so we have a pretty good overview of the trends involved. If you have any questions, please ask away and I'll try and answer as best I can. Cheers, -Greyscale Still needs increasing, a decent player can get that in one match, remember once they are out of the academy they are up against fully armed squads. the difference crushes a load of new players.