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Update Campaign 2 and beyond

Discussion in 'Game changes and Updates' started by Eric, Aug 21, 2014.

  1. Eric

    Eric Administrator Staff Member Administrator Forum Moderator Official Author

    Hey all, with Campaign 2/3 contest coming to a close we have been throwing around some ideas for future campaigns. But before we jump into that we wanted to thank everyone that took the time to submit tracks and even those who may not have submitted but contribute through track feedback as well, so thank you! We also plan on sending out some "swag bags" for this contest so if you participated stay tuned.

    Running contests for both Campaign 1 and now this one for 2/3 we have definitely learned a few things and have some new ideas on how campaigns could evolve that we wanted to get feedback on.

    Campaign 1 currently has 10 tracks and serves as an intro for a new player so progression and easing players into difficulty is really important with this one. We have identified that we may be ramping up difficulty too quickly between tracks 4-7 and may need to add in 1 or 2 "easier" tracks at some point to tackle some frustration by new players we are seeing.

    Campaign 2/3 was intended to ramp up progression from beginner-intermediate with some "difficult" for new players tracks. We have been testing out and reviewing submissions. With the tracks submitted and thinking through the long term management of campaigns as well as players requests to have featured tracks we are considering pushing out all 15-20 tracks into Campaign 2 and changing the format of future campaign contests but in order to do that we really need your feedback / input on how you think it would work.

    The idea is to define genres of tracks that will be used to hold on-going open campaigns. So for example, say one of the genres we want to move forward with is "Fantasy" we would release a campaign named "Fantasy" once we have say at a minimum 2 suitable "Fantasy" tracks the campaign would be released with an open call for "Fantasy" tracks, once that campaign has say 15-20 tracks we could open up a "Fantasy II" campaign for future tracks and so on. We would expect future campaigns to naturally be a mix of easy/intermediate/difficult tracks with no specific order of progression (that is what the player learned in campaign 1+2).

    If you are on board with the idea of holding those types of on-going campaign contests would love to hear your opinions on what would make good themes/categories for types/name of campaigns. Here are some ideas that have been floated around that are a mix of both track themes and types of tracks that may not fit a specific theme:
    • Action
    • Fantasy
    • Sci-Fi
    • Western
    • Mountains/Downhill
    • Trials
    • Freeride / Dirt jumping
    Anyways, if you have any feedback on potential issues or concerns would love to hear it!
     
    Cryogenic, FOIL, Sono and 5 others like this.
  2. Max007x

    Max007x Forum Moderator Staff Member Administrator Forum Moderator VIP Official Author

    Awarded Medals
    Keeping the campaigns going from easy to hard seems cooler to me than random. For themes I think that themes like Western are better than themes like downhill and freeride because you have a lot more freedom in design.
     
    FOIL, Char and speedy__XD like this.
  3. ThreeAreFour

    ThreeAreFour Well-Known Member Official Author

    I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but I like the idea of "Tutorial", "Advanced Tutorial" followed by your theme suggestion. The first tutorial would have to be completed to unlock the advanced one and when advanced is completed, all campaigns should open up unless they are follow ups like "Fantasy II", or III or IV, etc.
    Of the themes you listed, I don't like action and freeride / dirt jumping.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2014
    FOIL, Char and FREEZ like this.
  4. speedy__XD

    speedy__XD Well-Known Member Official Author

    First of all just wanted to say I got my swag bag from campaign #1 yesterday and it totally made my day :D

    I have to agree with Max, I like the easier to harder style of campaign with the open then closed status :) However (I think) I get why you would do this ;) I know one problem is you can only make tracks harder for so long.. What if we did something like 5-7 campaigns that keep ramping up the difficulty with the last one being pretty hard. Something like a minimum of 1 min perfect run ;) It wouldn't have to have a lot of tracks. But as an experienced player I would really like to see that :) Anyway you could have those first 5-7 campaigns in a sub section of the campaigns, "intro to FRHD". So that way players have a more structured navigation of the campaign. Then after have all of the other "random" themed campaigns be playable at anytime, with only the first two tracks unlocked and you needing to play to further unlock tracks in that theme :) I personally am not ready to just jump into random themes though ;) I would like to see a steady progression of difficulty until we get to some pretty challenging tracks :) Also I think if we do something like that, campaigns 1-7 (or however many) should all be linked together so that you can not play tracks in higher numbered campaigns until you have completed all of the previous easier tracks. So like you can't play campaign 4 until you have completely played #3. However I don't think the themed ones should be linked together :) Anyway I know that is a lot to read, hope it made sense :D Thanks for all you guys do :)
     
    FOIL, la5erbeam, Char and 1 other person like this.
  5. FREEZ

    FREEZ Well-Known Member Official Author

    This will take quite some time to read Eric, and answers in the quote:
    Hope this was helpful!
     
  6. Max007x

    Max007x Forum Moderator Staff Member Administrator Forum Moderator VIP Official Author

    Awarded Medals
    Yeah I think that the way it is right now is really great. I'm guessing that the difficulty thing is a problem because some tracks submitted turn out to be too hard or too easy and you don't have that problem if you do it with themes instead of difficulty. You could always switch tracks from campaign to camaign to make that work better. If a track for campaign 3 is too hard you can switch it with one in campaign 4 for example ;)
     
    speedy__XD likes this.
  7. Eric

    Eric Administrator Staff Member Administrator Forum Moderator Official Author

    Originally we were planning to go plan campaigns easy to difficult but the current mix of tracks in 2 have ramped up difficulty pretty quickly and would be tough to fill out future campaigns. What we would like to do with future campaigns is still have them lock sequentially but have each campaign track individually progress in difficulty. Plan to see those really challenging tracks in a campaign but not 10 of 10 of them, would say a nice mix.

    We are looking for themes / categories that could cover pretty much all types of Free Rider tracks, like for tracks like this http://www.freeriderhd.com/t/7726-dh-with-logos would be suited for downhill or freeride.

    The open campaigns would give the most freedom to authors either targeting a genre or type of track.
     
  8. Eric

    Eric Administrator Staff Member Administrator Forum Moderator Official Author

    For Action was thinking tracks like this one: http://www.freeriderhd.com/t/3201-cops but I guess it could fall under other categories

    We would have to do some significant rework to have them unlock that way and not sequentially. We do want to put an option to "skip" maybe for coins or something so that players that can't beat a track aren't blocked from future campaigns.

    What would be a good type / category for all those tracks that have dirt jumps?
     
  9. Eric

    Eric Administrator Staff Member Administrator Forum Moderator Official Author

    Awesome! We hope to get some better swag bags going out as the community grows!

    I get what you are saying and think we can still mix in those difficult tracks in the themed campaigns and have them still unlock in the same progression. Just some tracks a pro will burn through but others will be more difficult. Having in an option to skip would allow players to move forward but always having those medal-less difficult tracks nagging at them to beat it.
     
    la5erbeam likes this.
  10. Eric

    Eric Administrator Staff Member Administrator Forum Moderator Official Author

    Definitely, if you don't feel comfortable giving us your address completely understand we can thank you / show our appreciation with words instead!

    With tracks submitted if felt like Campaign 3 was going to be a really really challenging campaign and for new players would basically be a show stopper. Watching some new players trying to get through some tracks currently in campaign 2 has been very painful, we almost lost a couple computer monitors :)

    We could still ramp progression within the campaign itself.
     
    FREEZ likes this.
  11. speedy__XD

    speedy__XD Well-Known Member Official Author

    Cool :) That would be awesome :D I would wear a fr t-shirt all day ;) (just sayin)

    Okay well that sounds good too :) I trust you guys to do what is best for the whole community ;)
    Haha I have a couple of new players I tried on campaign one (never played before) It took them about half an hour each to beat it soo I could see that :p
     
  12. Sono

    Sono Well-Known Member Official Author

    (Just going to throw down all of my opinions/comments about the above).
    - I personally love the idea of having different themed campaigns, but only if they are alongside the current progression campaigns. Releasing themed campaigns could be like releasing "DLC" without the D and L.. If you know what I mean. Content that just adds on to the experience of the game, and doesn't really have much to do with the progression of the game.
    - What if instead of having each campaign filled completely before beginning the next, harder one, we just grab some beginner, intermediate, hard, etc. tracks and put them into 2 or 3 track long campaigns? From there you fill in the beginners first, then intermediate, and so on.
    - I agree with the statement that the campaigns become too difficult too soon. For example, tracks 1 2 and 3 in the first campaign should basically be the difficulty throughout all of the campaign, but just ranging in different themes and lengths.
    - I think including an "Advanced Tutorial" or a "Tips and Tricks" tutorial would be quite beneficial, but I think it should be optional, as in you don't HAVE to complete it all to progress into the campaign.
    - We should call the "dirt" theme the "Backyard Tracks" or something like that, Eric
    - What about winter themed? China themed?
    - I also had a new player try and play through the first campaign. He generally had a lot of difficulty after the 4th or 5th track. Not only that, but a little guy on Youtube recorded his progress, showing where difficulty was met.
    - I got my FRHD swag too! :D It was quite exciting. Stickers, and pins and a hard-copy of my bragging rights. ;D
     
    FOIL, FERTER and speedy__XD like this.
  13. speedy__XD

    speedy__XD Well-Known Member Official Author

    I agree with pretty much everything Sono just said ^ :) I would really like to see some sort of continued progression with the campaign series that we have going now :) I am definitely warming up to the idea of the different themed campaigns too :)
    I just would like to see the campaign progress to a fairly difficult point and then have the different themes as another part of the campaign with varying difficulties. Perhaps as the above mentioned 3 track long format? :p Anyway all good ideas, just my input :)
     
  14. FERTER

    FERTER Active Member Official Author

    Agree with you Sono !
    It's true that new players are struggling with the campaign 1, I tested it with a friend
     
  15. Reborn

    Reborn Well-Known Member Official Author Rotten Flesh

    Awarded Medals
    An 'around the world' campaign would be nice
     
  16. Pityboy

    Pityboy Well-Known Member Official Author

    would the majority of my tracks fit into Fantasy? I hope to include some of my other creations in the future.
     
  17. Eric

    Eric Administrator Staff Member Administrator Forum Moderator Official Author

    Could be, or maybe jumps?
     
  18. Eric

    Eric Administrator Staff Member Administrator Forum Moderator Official Author

    I to liked the idea of having campaigns continue to progress from easy to more difficult in a linear progression, but after putting together Campaign 1+2 we definitely learned a lot and the difficulty/problems associated with that, the main issue is that the majority of players will hit a wall and either halt all progression or more likely just quit all together.

    There is also the issue of holding contests and asking authors to create an intermediate to difficult track, those meanings are very different depending on experience of player. What may work best for the game is to select themes / types of tracks that authors are already enjoy creating and those tracks that players enjoy playing. Contests are open, but there would only be max 20 tracks per campaign. Open contests with varying themes would hopefully increase overall participation.

    We can measure/estimate the difficulty of a track based on the completion rate, based on play I think that having campaigns with all difficult tracks is going to be far to frustrating and not a good experience. What may be best for the game, is to keep the current unlock strategy and have future campaigns have a healthy mix of easy/intermediate/difficult where the range of difficulty increases in the later campaigns. This would allow players to still progress and if they can't complete those tracks they may have the option to skip with coins, but at least there would be no real wall because they should be able to hit a track that they can beat and go back to those difficult tracks at a later time.

    So I think we can meet the needs of players looking for progression of difficulty while still mixing in varying levels of difficulty within the campaigns themselves, does that make sense?
     
    Sono, FOIL, speedy__XD and 1 other person like this.
  19. speedy__XD

    speedy__XD Well-Known Member Official Author

    Yes that makes sense, seems very well thought out ;)
     
  20. FREEZ

    FREEZ Well-Known Member Official Author

    I think Ill try to add a track between [3 and 4] and [5 and 6].
     

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