Lately i've been playing with a new group on Discord that started pretty late into the season, a lot of them are friends that i'd consider "casual" since they can only put around a couple of hours a day into any game; not just Marathon. I asked them what they thought of the game, they played around 10-15 hours total and they told me it was good but they feel like progression seems slow.
Mind you i been playing with them and given them better equipment so they can try out weapons and cores that they might otherwise not find, as well as coordinating our contracts to level the factions quickly. Still they felt as if the progress they could make on their own would have been negligeble and they would have felt aimless without me guiding them.
I think there could be a couple of changes to help players actually feel like they are progressing in the game:
1.- Daily Contract Completion.
Simple idea, first contact completion for any faction has an extra reputation reward.
This system would help casual and hardcore player advance through their faction levels faster by just completing 1 contract every day, for a total of 6 extra rewards 1 for each faction. The reputation reward is the thing that could change, but i'd say a bonus reward of 500 - 700 Rep would be ideal. This would get player to actually try to complete contracts more frequently, play more games in general and make progression faster now that we are coming into season 2.
2.- More reputation for In-Run Events and Faction Specific Actions.
Another simple change that would make players feel rewarded from In-Run events even if they don't get good loot. As it stands the extra reputation you get from performing certain events and actions throughout a run is miniscule; around 10-20 rep for certain actions. This is fine for certain actions like picking Sparkleaves or Checking Loot Bag, but certain factions could definitely reward more Reputation for completing In-Run events.
3.- Salvage Trading and Upgrading.
Not my image. Made by Major Help
The System i feel would be controversial and would change the game the most. Salvage as it stands is the biggest barrier to a casual player of actually progressing their faction tree. The players know that right now the best way to farm salvage is pushing with "Materialist" equipment and running Outpost or Cryo; the 2 late game maps. But how approachable is this for a casual player? And how would trading/upgrading salvage change the game for the hardcore audience?
In one hand i could see casuals doing more runs to collect basic salvage to later upgrade into better rarities, helping matchmaking times and keeping them playing longer into a season. On the other i could see hardcore players feeling that the risk to reward that is currently in the game is being dimished to appease players that don't put in the "effort".
Still, i feel that an extended salvage system could help people in the game for longer, making so that every succesful run let's them build the necessary materials to progress.
Final Thougths.
I think we really need to find a way to make the progression of the game quicker/easier for casuals. I know that some part of the community will say that progression is just part of the game and changing it would be detrimental, but i really don't think that would be the case.
Right now the player base has being going down, a common thing for any seasonal game and even more for Extraction Shooter with forced wipes.
Season 2 has to show what the direction for the game is all about, and i really don't think more grind that less than half of the current player base can achieve is the way to go, there should be end game content that rewards hardcore player of course, but it shouldn't be the case that most players can't even feel that they reached a certain level of completion on the basic progression system.
I really want to hear your thougths over how to retain more casuals on the game, i know some people would just flip those concerns off and say this isn't a casual game, but i'd rather have a more casual Marathon than to see the playerbase dwindle until we have less than 10k players on Steam.
Edit: When i say trading salvage i mean exchanging one type for another, think biomass for gunmetal. Not trading between players.