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Shot Online State of the Union
Date Apr 24, 2014 Views 16,802
Greeting and Salutation Fellow Golfers!

Orlus here!  Last night, the Shot Online team in San Jose and Korea had a marathon conference call discussing several matters both on the business side and the player side.  That discussion is going to help set the ball in motion for big improvements in Shot Online International.  In this thread, I will be going over the major discussion topics relevant to you all.  This thread will also be a marathon of content, so please stick with it, I can assure you it is full of great news.

Before I get started, I just wanted to thank the GM team,  [GM]Snow and [GM] Thrill for working hard to get me up to speed about the issues within Shot.  They really care about our game and more importantly, you, our players.  I also want to thank the SOMs, the staff is going to be leaning heavily on them for information about the game, the past, and the players, so if you see them in game be sure to give them a big thumbs up.  They have been working as hard for Shot Online as any of the staff, and they've been doing it for free.

So, in this thread we'll be talking about some big issues that GamesCampus has kept pretty much silent about in the past months / years.  This changes with the current team.  We have said it already, but I will reiterate; Today marks a change in the way news and information is shared with the Shot Online community.  From now on, we will be doing our best to make time to discuss, and inform what is happening and what is going on in Shot Online.  And in this thread, we will be talking about the major issues like EXP Requirements, events, version discrepancy, and future development.

The Elephant in the Room

Back several years ago, with the introduction of the WRT, Shot Online developers were faced with a challenge to balance the average leveling rate across all versions of their games.  They had several factors that had to be considered to make the average time per level consistent across all versions,  things like event activity, item rewards, item availability and many more.  They closely monitored average experience earned, both per hole and per player.  After collecting all of this data, they balanced the EXP requirements per level to match the rate in which players earned experience across different regions.  At this time this was an adequate solution.  The time for German, International and Korean players to level up was consistent.

However, as all of us know, times change, people change and for Shot Online, events, rewards and commitments change. The problem has arisen as a result of these changes, and the lack of re-evaluating the situation, something that had not be requested or pushed for by the previous producer. 

That changes now. 

Following our discussion, I am very happy to announce that major changes to the way EXP requirements are calculated will be underway in the next few months.  This comes with a caveat however, the base EXP rates cannot change without destroying your characters in the process.  Which means the solution will not come with simply copying other regions EXP Requirements, but instead balancing the ratios so that the EXP earned matches the proportion of the EXP Required. So while the total EXP required to level will not change, the base amount of EXP earned by playing the game will be rebalanced. 


The final results have not been set, so all ideas are subject to change, however the top ideas at this time include the introduction of quests both in an over arching story, as well as daily quests that grant EXP to compensate for the difference, as well as changing the EXP earned per hole based on title, adding much more significance to your title based on level, rewarding skill, game knowledge and commitment.  Again, these are merely ideas and subject to change, and we will be collecting feedback from users, as well as our content team in Korea. 

Weather Impacts Across the Globe

One of the most common reoccurring issues I have seen mentioned by SOMs, Players, and staff have been pertaining to the weather.  The common opinion is that the current weather system has been turned up in order to punish players.

The official word from our development team is that weather, across all versions, is coded identically and there is no difference between version.  Although, weather had been increased in the past (more than 2 years ago), this was related to increasing the challenge of the game for players leveling up, so they need to understand how weather functions and affects the game.  These changes had not been documented publicly to further increase player discovery and analysis.  This is a good thing, the more challenges you face, the more rewarding you will feel when you have mastered it.

Take a look at the weather logs, from March 2013 and 2014 from both International and German service:


It's our opinion, that the weather is not the real problem.  The real problem again relates back to the EXP requirements.  Because the weather is consistent across versions, but the EXP required is not, the perception of the weather is significantly more punishing to our International version than other regions.

Because of this problem, we are not going to directly address the weather at this time.  Once EXP requirements are normalized, we will revisit this matter if it still remains.  I'll be going into details regarding development and player feedback later on in this write up.

Past Lack of Attention, Events, Future Event Explosions!

In the past several months, or even year, you have all noticed a decline in event frequency.  While at the same time, events in other versions have seemingly been coming out of the woodworks.  One thing to keep in mind, not as an excuse, but as a cold hard fact, is that motivation and drive is a huge factor in game publishing.  If drive or motivation start to wane, then so too does the quality of a title.  That was the case with the past year's direction.  Leaning away from events, more focus on the bottom line and bottom dollar. 

Next month (May) will be the first month I will be setting the event plan.  First, some back story for event planning, and how it works in Shot Online.  At the end of each month, the producer, myself, submits an event and sales plan for approval from the Shot Online development team, once they look over the event, rewards and balance impacts they tweak, revise and finally approve these plans.  These plans take time and creativity as well as a real understanding of the game and the players.  The increase of simple rate events, and decrease in unique events, including missions have shown a lack in all of those factors.

That changes today, as well!  Many of your favorite, but long lost events will be making a comeback in the coming months!  Next month's (May) plan is currently in the approval process, but at this time, I have requested 5 unique events, that, to my understanding, have not occurred in Shot Online International before.   Take a look at the list below for details, but please note all plans are subject to change, these events may change or be cancelled pending approval. 


Event frequency is also increasing dramatically, next month, there will be an in game event, completely unrelated to Sales events (open rewards) every single day of the month.  Again, please note all plans are subject to change, these events may change or be cancelled pending approval. 

Now, this also comes with a caveat.  Some of these events won't be the greatest ever, and won't always include amazing rewards that are incredibly easy to receive.  We just can't realistically do that, and expect you to remain entertained or invested.  Also, because many of these events are new, or at least new to me, they may leave a lot of room for improvement.  It's going to be up to you the player to inform us what you think.  This is incredibly easy, simply participate in the events you like, or do not if you don't like the event.  Furthermore, we don't expect you to be available 24 hours a day to participate in every event you enjoy, so please tell us what you think of the event in the forum discussion.  We will be relaying user feedback as well as recorded data to the developers regarding all events weekly.

Bright Future of Shot Online and the Development Team

After our conference call, both San Jose, and Korea teams left energized and looking forward to the coming months, as well as the long term success of Shot Online. 

The development team in Korea has always been incredibly concerned with player feedback, and always tried take it into consideration when making design decisions. 

The development team , after seeing our new focus on community interaction, have now scheduled a new weekly meeting between our staff here in San Jose and the team in Korea to discuss community opinion and feedback.  Every week, the GM team will be collecting user opinions on all sorts of relevant matters and relaying them to the development team.  This means you could potentially see your ideas implemented in Shot Online!  To do this, we need to know what you think!  So please comment, and discuss EVERYTHING!  If you have any sort of opinion on matters related to Shot Online, let us know, we are listening, and sharing it with developers who also are listening closely.

I am also happy to announce that next maintenance we'll be rolling out a new quest system, that introduces a new storyline in Shot Online, as well as daily quests!  We are looking forward to giving this new content for everyone to enjoy May 20th!

Conclusion

Phew!  What a wall of text! This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what we discussed, and what will continue to be discussed on a regular basis.  There are so many positive things to look forward, and it is my hope that my excitement is contagious to all of you.  We hope that you all continue to show your support for Shot Online, and really notice our efforts to make Shot Online International the very best it can be.  Please let us know what you think by discussing this topic on the forums!
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