devtrackers.gg
Last Updated: December 14, 2021
Hey Creators,
Today we are launching the Support Device to all creators!
Our goal is for creators to be able to make amazing, high-quality content, and for our players to have the best experience possible.
Part of a great experience is ensuring that other players are present and that matches are full. We’ve been looking into this area and seen fewer full matches than we’d expect. Some of these issues were bugs (and some have already been addressed), but others are a result of how we’re incentivizing creators.
The current pre-game HUD ‘Support Me’ feature has been in use for a while and hasn’t proven itself. It doesn’t provide a consistent player experience across platforms, it isn’t part of the game world itself, and it's only fit for lobbies. That last point is particularly important, as it has ended up incentivizing the use of lobbies, even when the game mode would actually be better, with fuller matches, with Join In Progress enabled.
We recognize that not all games and experiences benefit from Join in Progress, but if your map would benefit from it, we want you to be empowered to turn it on and have players experience your map at its best, without having to compromise on your support.
Asking for Support: Rules
The only rule when asking players to support you, either by using the Support Device or using the pre-game “Support Me” function is do not to force or trick players into supporting you. For example: by pretending the default “Support Me” button does something else.
Support Device: Best Practices
When you use the Support Device, please consider these best practices.
- You can place a Billboard device to draw attention to the Support Device. Please only use a maximum of the ‘Medium’ font size (which is the default billboard font size).
- When using a billboard to encourage players to support you, please use one of the recommended billboard messages below, when creating your billboard. For solo creations use I, Me, my. For Team Maps use We, Us, our. Examples include:
- Press button to support Us
- Press button to support my/our creations.
- We appreciate your support by pressing this button.
- Thank you for the ongoing support.
- To support future creations, press this button
- You can place decorations around the Support Device. You should not create arrows, hearts, or other obvious work to encourage or create advertisements of the support.
- You should allow for 2 full tiles of space between the Support Device and any player spawn or teleport devices. Remember not to make advertisement a player’s first experience, as per our best practices.
- You’ll find that the Support Device is limited to one per island. Consider placing it in a shared spawn hub, or a dedicated non-combat zone within the map, or in an appealing place in your experience.
Support Device: Technical Restrictions
When using the Support Device, you will find the following technical restrictions:
- The Support Device is limited to one per island.
- Resizing is disabled on the Support Device.
- The Support Device will disable itself if it is overlapping another device. Make sure to place it carefully.
- Pickups cannot be placed on or near the Support Device.
Using the “Support Me” feature in pre-game lobbies
When you set the autostart option in the Game settings of your map to any value other than Immediate, your map will automatically start with a pre-game lobby. Players joining this lobby will see a “Support Me” button on their HUD, inviting them to hit a button to set your code as their active Support-A-Creator code.
Some game modes benefit from pre-game lobbies, but not all. Instead of a pre-game lobby, consider setting autostart to immediate and instead use ‘join in progress’. You might even try both across a few days as an experiment and look at your analytics to see what drives the best success for your map.
It’s fine to build elements inside your experience to draw attention to this pre-game “Support Me” function (“signage”). If you do, make sure to follow the Asking for Support: Rules.
We’ll continue to keep an eye on the usage of this device, and we may tweak or update our best practices or rules as needed.