I take requests from everyone, paying or not. I just listen and decide what I consider best.
I'm still adjusting the noob shield but I think it has worked wonders for new players, let me explain.
The main issue of the game is to get new players since the store doesn't list the game on top unless I pay a fortune on ads (it used to list based on reviews). And the situation was such like this:
- New player joins, the first time. Gets assigned a room with a level 30 or a Moraf even. The MORAF totally destroys this person. The player leaves, post a review complaining this is too hard, and never comes back.
Everyone lost. The moraf is super happy he destroyed a noob and got his points, but he doesn't realize he just kicked a future player out of the game forever and little by little he will always be alone in games.
My decision:
Split based on rank. But at certain hours not many people plays, so I put everyone together.
This means, if enough people are playing, YOU will never have this shield issue. You will not see any noobs whatsoever. No problem for you.
But if almost nobody is connected at that time, a MORAF will see a noob. And realize this is already a problem: almost nobody is playing because you've got placed together, and this noob has to see a top player in their first games. So what is better? He has a shield or that he gets destroyed without mercy and leaves forever?
You may think: hey, I didn't have that advantage. Not so true. When you joined the game years ago there were many new players coming all the time. You got assigned to higher ranks often but you also got split into lower ranks much more often. So it was more balanced. It is not the case right now where this person would probably play for half-hour and see nobody, so I have to protect these new players until they reach a certain rank.
30 hits are too much? Maybe, that's why I keep track of the stats. I began with 45 hits max, I lowered it to 30 already. Maybe I lower it a bit more, but understand that I didn't make this change without thinking it through. Also, if you need 30 hits is because you are WAY over ranked to this player. That's the maximum. Most players won't need more than 7.
In your case, this player is probably someone with an older account that just created a new one, because new players won't be able to bring you down twice as you described. They are usually not even able to figure out aiming and rotating at the same time when they begin.
In summary, if enough people are playing, you will never have this shield issue. You will not see any noobs whatsoever. I hope this change helps achieve that state. Since I added the shield, the retention rate for new players is over 40 times more! So it has made a huge impact that higher ranks didn't push noobs out so easily.