A 2v2 mode for Rivals? (and other ideas)

Recently, there were some critical posts on Reddit by very active Rivals players and community contributors. Omeleet announced that he might stop playing Rivals, and AliciaDestiny voiced her worries about the growth of the player base. These are not two random complaints, but they come from people who really understand the game, and contribute a lot to the community (see the interviews with Alicia and Omeleet to learn more about the two).

To paraphrase, their combined worries are:

1. The player base isn't growing, and EA / Redwood seem to do little about it (be it performance marketing, or increasing the buzz about the game with events, tournaments etc.)
2. To many players, the design of events, their rewards and unit levels (like the recent new War Games) seems like milking the existing player base too much for short-term gain.
3. The game might benefit from new content to appeal to certain audiences better; Alicia suggested 2v2.

In this post, I want to comment on these topics, and try to provide some suggestions to Redwood that try to strike a balance between effort, their interests, and the players' interests.

Events & Monetization

First, let's start with what I like about what Redwood recently did:

1. Higher frequency of events. I think two events a week are great, and help both with diversity of play, and also to balance lower rewards for the free run with keeping total rewards for players up.
2. Event diversity. Especially unranked (L6 cap) and the new War Games format.

At the same time, I think there is room for improvement to meet players' criticism whilst maintaining alignment with the interests of Redwood / EA.

1. Lower the Level Cap for War Games. I believe this can even help strengthen monetization of the game, because:
• War Games makes players test new units
• If the level cap is lower (e.g. L8-9 for Masters), a higher share of players can test these units in a fair, competitive situation
• This can make players want to play with these units longer-term, which then can incentivize spend (e.g. by buying the premium track rewards, which could supply exactly these units)
• The lower level cap also means Redwood could bring in newer units, which is in their interest, as they are connected to spending money
2. Make War Games Reruns a bit cheaper. I believe this is win-win, as the likelihood for a player to want to play a unit outside of the event increases if they play them 20 or 30 times rather than just 10.

Even if the devs are not convinced that this will work better for them, I recommend them to try. It would be appreciated by the community, which I think is important at this stage.

F2P Rewards

There are concerns that the free rewards got worse. I personally believe that this criticism is sometimes a bit too harsh, because:

• As a comparison that things got worse, people often use the best events of the past
• Higher frequency of events (partially) compensates for lower free-run rewards
• At least for players who play a lot (~30 games a day), cloning vats and the changes to the credit-for-games mechanics were positive.

At the same time, the criticism is understandable and justified in many areas. Yet, there are some things I'd strongly recommend to Redwood. Most of them are not costing them a cent, as they just require better active communication.

1. Actively communicate that you plan to keep a 2 events / week frequency, and that you plan to keep the majority of them at lower levels. This allows players to consider the frequency of events (= more free runs) when evaluating the overall economy. If there's 2x the amount of events, it is ok if the free rewards are only about half as good.
2. Actively communicate what the plans to bring back more Diamond rewards for free-to-play players are. Redwood announced this in the Reddit AMA, but it's not going to make players happier unless they know what exactly is coming, and when.
3. It's okay to make your monetization and reward structure a bit opaque in the app. But be more straight-forward and open with your core community on Reddit and Discord, they will appreciate it. For example, you could publish tables for card+credit rewards for the free runs of events. Most players will not read this anyways, but your vocal, core community will appreciate a lot if you treat them like adults.

Buzz for YouTube

I do love Alicia's idea to bring top players to E3 to demonstrate how great high-level play in this game is. Yet, I realize that this cannot be done in the short amount of time until then, and there might be more important areas of focus for EA.

That's why I want to recommend a simple thing would help a bit and not cost EA a single dollar:

A weekly community update in the in-game message. You do have a community manager who reads everything on Reddit. She or he or could gather some top videos every week, and turn them into an in-game message. This is win-win-win:

• A win for your casual players, who get links to good YouTube videos for entertainment & learn about the game
• A win for your YouTubers, who get more views and followers. (And it's also a nice way for the devs to say thank you to the YouTubers.)
• A win for EA / Redwood, as ...
• It reduces player churn: Casual players who watch YouTube videos on Rival are more likely to stay with the game
• It can bring new players: More views and likes on good Rivals videos mean they will also reach more other viewers on YouTube. Great YouTube videos are one of the best ways to get 
• It's also a win for the community, as it would show that the developers care about them

The ideal setup would be:

1. An article on the game website every week, embedding the videos. This also shows to website visitors that this is an active game with an active community
2. A post on the Rivals Subreddit with all the videos
3. Tweet the link to article & Reddit post
4. An in-game message with direct links to all videos, and the EA website article

But for starters, the most important thing would be to just link the videos with a short 1-sentence description each directly from the in-game message.

For example, this week, the following videos could be put into the "Rivals Videos of the Week" message:

13lade's Top 10 Replayes

Bikerush's War Games Run

Alicia's LIANG IS SAVAGE video

One of terRor's replays:

CaptainBenzie's updated Droneswarm report:

The total effort for the community manager / social media manager should be less than 1 hour per week for the basic version of this. Hell, this whole blog post here cost me less than 2 hours!

2v2 mode

Another of Alicia's ideas, and various other people also asked for it in the past. The very valid concerns are:

1. Is it even viable? Would you not need larger maps? How should that work on the mobile screen?
2. Isn't it way too much effort for the developers?

I thought about it, and came up with the following idea that could work well for a lot of causal players, and hopefully be not too much effort for the developers.

The general game mechanic is unchanged. Yet, each player's activities are split into two roles:

• Generals (or Strategists) 
• These guys bring the decks (and with it, their unit levels)
• They spend the Tiberium, i.e. ...
• Build harvesters
• Build buildings
• Build units
• Use commander abilities
• Field Commanders (or Tacticians)
• They control the units

On first view, it might feel that the first role is boring. But I don't think so. Even just watching the game is cool for many people. And as the "General", you get to bring the deck, and make a lot of in-game decisions.

I even feel this could work well for certain types of causal players:

• People with weaker micro could prefer the General role. They get to build interesting decks and heavily influence the strategy.
• People with strong micro but low unit levels might be able to get to the top of the 2v2 ladder as Tacticians by playing with other people's units.
• People with high unit levels ("whales") could enjoy utilizing them in a different way.
• In some situations, you might feel you can be the "General", but don't have the focus to be the "Field Commander".

The match making could be relatively simple: 

• You chose 2v2 mode, and then one of the two roles
• As "General", you then chose faction and deck as usual
• For each role, you have a separate medal count for the match making

The implementation could be relatively straight-forward, Yes, it needs rework of the netcode etc., but it's far from the issues with a totally different game mode that would need different maps, different balancing,

What's your take on this? What could EA / Redwood do without huge effort or cost to help Rivals and it's community?