One does get one no-point game when one first joins. It may encourage new freemiums to take part if this were to be an additional game to the usual limit, but I'm not sure how keen freemiums would be to take up 25% of their allotted games with one that scores no points. Personally I found it okay to explore one or two maps (or indeed options - anyone who mis-clicks as often as I do wouldn't want anything other than unlimited reinforcements) within one's game limit, and of course, the whole raison d'etre of the game is the risk: but anything that might encourage more users is worth considering. I can see younger players being put off by getting a battering in their first few games.
The biggest benefit of no points games would be allowing high ranked players to avoid risking too many points by joining a game with a low rank player.
Currently they tend to only play high ranking players for that reason.
Another bonus is like you wrote, we could try weird maps we don't understand and if we get stomped it’s no big deal.
Unfortunately they don’t care about making things casual and fun here.
I too like the idea of casual games, especially to try new maps that one might not like or may be at a serious disadvantage to people with prior map experience by way of missing some important aspect. And I assume that some people would simply like to play some games without risking their ratings points.
And on such casual maps it would be good to have an “abort” or “resign” option early on for similar reasons.
A related idea would be to have basic tips and tricks relayed to the players somewhere, ideally on the game screen somewhere but if not there then via a DM. Similarly it would be good if there were videos made by people playing the maps (on youtube and ideally other alt tech sites as well), and this would also help in advertising the site if done reasonably well.
