Keeping New Players

[Penitent]

Hesky has stumbled upon and highlighted some very useful information that presents us with an extraordinary opportunity: How to make CRPG great again.

The time has arrived already for CRPGs revival -- we are in the midst of it.  As we stand today, the mod lives again with regular server population and nice battles.  We can be content and ride the wave until it peters out once again upon the shores of time -- or we can add to it's momentum and see how far it takes us!

New CRPG accounts are being created daily.  Yes, every day new people are creating at least a few new CRPG accounts.  Every day has a handful of new players with enough interest to check out the game.  If we can encourage even just a few to stick around long enough to realize what an amazing mod this is, it will be greatly worth our while.

In this thread we can brainstorm ideas or find solutions to old problems to help in this effort.

65 people downloaded the bugged launcher from moddb over the past 3 days

How can this be remedied, for example?

We already have great noob topics and guides on the forum (though many are outdated) and we have clans willing and able to accept new members.  What else can be done to help the new player stick around for even just a few extra days until they can appreciate the depth of fun the game can offer?

Maybe a stickied thread for new players to introduce themselves?  What else can you think of?  There are no dumb suggestions except for the dumb ones.

(click to show/hide)

http://forum.melee.org/general-discussion/crpg-account-statistics-where-did-it-go-wrong/

I refer you to graph 2: 'Account Signups' Jan2014-Jan2017.

The idea that this mod doesn't attract new players is a myth at best, otherwise an excuse for why the population dropped. We've always been great at getting new players, the rate at which they join has always been far more stable than the overall population. Our problem has been keeping them.

Allow me to explain some of the methods by which someone stumbles into this mod:
- MOD DB
- Regular patches
- Steam Sale

It would be delusional to claim the mod doesn't attract new players, even when the mod was dying it was attracting new players. We were getting 20 new accounts a day in mid-2015, down to 15/10 a day in the year that followed. One of the biggest groups of active players propping up NA1 right now (which account for it being bigger than EU1 since revival) is a group of Native players that joined as a clan, they joined within days of the servers going live again, before the mod was even properly fixed or advertised. And we don't get new players you say?

[Asheram]

Chain them up in your basement with a computer that can only run crpg.

[Algarn]

Softening up the grind would be a good start, rewamping the starting heirloom system (you get points you're able to relocate every month perhaps, but won't leave your account, instead of 4 mediocre MWs), and giving them 50k would be a nice start.
I say multiply the gold and XP gain by two, and reward assists (dunno if you can code it on warband, I think so), as well as kills, or reduce the XP curve so it doesn't takes that long to get into the game.


Why would I advocate for that ? Because I gave away my looms and retired my lvl 37 juggernaut-killer, and for a month, I tried to get back, and even with a gen 8 character, the grind is huge. I probably will never get back to 12 +3s by myself.

[Penitent]

Softening up the grind would be a good start, rewamping the starting heirloom system (you get points you're able to relocate every month perhaps, but won't leave your account, instead of 4 mediocre MWs), and giving them 50k would be a nice start.

Starter packages and grind changes may help -- but I don't think they will help that much.  A new (brand new) person will get flattened oh so easily over and over again until they get sufficient practice and skills...no matter what their equipment or level.

How about a noob training event held every once in a while to show new guys the ropes?

[Gravoth_iii]

I think it comes down to the balance of the game, its not fun for new players to come here and use really shitty versions of things in native.

[Penitent]

2. The peasant-to-hero journey is a unique selling point of the game, it's the RPG element that you build your own character.

I completely agree with this -- it's what got me into the game years ago.

New players don't know if the grind is fast, slow, or just right.  They have no idea what the weapon/class balance is like.  They just log in to play for 35 minutes and see if they like the game.

In fact, I may start doing a peasant training camp on Wednesday nights or something and see if any new players will join and get the basic/intermediate skills down to enjoy the combat.  I think a little hand-holding and community involvement is the ticket to get them to stick around for that first week (and then get hooked, heh heh heh).

Is the NA Duel server still up, or can it be brought up for such a purpose?

[Yuang]

It's not advisable to completely delete data, and even new players will think CRPG is an unreliable game. Old players may be disappointed and lose interest. The best way is to reduce the difficulty of entry.

[Gravoth_iii]

Peasant to hero journey is definitely what originally caught me. Im sure im not the only one who got in at the very early stages and really enjoying the moment you could afford a single piece of new armor or weaponry.

[njames89]

If we are talking about people getting annihilated and quitting starting them at level 1 does not help. Starting them at lvl 34 would allow them to get a feel for the game and when they retire at lvl 35 they would get the full experience of peasantry anyways.

I'm not sure how you can advocate a wipe to help new players and simultaneously want them to start at lvl 1 lol. Peasants get punched and kicked to death.

[Yeldur]

I think the grind will be the main cause of newbies leaving, when I jump into a game I don't generally want to grind for hours and hours and hours so that I can then play on a level playing field with other people (Although I will say in C-RPG's case I did actually enjoy it) - I'd much rather just jump in and start hacking and slashing, which is what you can do on M&B multiplayer in native and on mercs, the levelling system does separate us yes, but we have to think of whether it's alienating the new players or making them like the game more.

Might be a good idea to set up a newbie sort of area where they can voice their concerns, also, talking to the new players in game and getting them to pop onto the forums here is a great idea to get them involved in the community, we should definitely be doing that. The forum isn't the easiest place to find.

[Casul]

main problem is the average high skill level compared to....well, any other mod and native

A low tier player in cRPG has easy play to go topscore in native.

It wont change a lot if you simply wipe everything, players might be more attracted because they might be able to compete then, but a lot of players wont be attracted to come back if they see all their grinded stuff deleted.

Would probably still say yes on a wipe because we dont need that kind of tryhard qq scum in cRPG anyway.

[Bronto]

The grind, the grind, the grind. I remember being stoked to hit level 30 the first time, then realizing I had to play the same length of time it took me to get from 1 to 30 all over again just so I could retire. I stuck with it, whiskey helped, but that was back in 2011 when there were a lot of players that kept me interested. Now I load up a character, stare at how far I have to go, play two rounds and quit. I'm fucking gen 47 on my main and I don't even want to do it, let alone some newbie who is worse than I am and I'm the best of the bads really.

Originally the concept of making my own character is what got me to keep grinding, that and internet friends. Now though, the face of multiplayer games has changed and we either need to change with it, or let this die it's final death. What I mean is, reevaluate how important it is to force someone to level their character on a 10 to 20 man server for 8.4 million xp. The majority of you don't want to give up your looms or levels you've earned and I can understand that, but by having everything, or in a clan that has hundreds of +3 items at your disposal, or knowing it'll take a casual gamer a minimum of 2 weeks to retire (just an estimate) there isn't any reason to keep you in the game anymore.

[Jona]

Something as simple as a "welcome to crpg message" that pops up when they first log into the website or in-game that details all the less-obvious mechanics would do a lot imo. Point out that while they may not like the grind, they can simply make a skip the fun character and enjoy high-level benefits immediately until they see for themselves what they're missing out on. A website-based tutorial could really help if it walks them through all their options, i.e. respecs, converting skill/attribute points, looms, stf characters and alts, gen bonuses, and if it points them in the direction of the forums/useful beginner guides for any other less-than-obvious things that'd help too. I for one never knew I could change skill points to attribute points for a while, and therefore dumped my useless points into shield despite being a 2h hero my first few gens, reaching level 30 with an incomplete 15-23 build.

I've said this elsewhere (cba to quote the post atm), but I think that having an xp bonus for a new account's first few gens would help more than starting at a high level/starting with looms. Let them grind it out (albeit relatively quickly) to get their first loom, that way it feels earned and yet isn't as large an investment as it was for most of us. If you get a starter kit that gives you some free looms, no matter if they're weapons you'd use or not, you feel no attachment to them as everyone got the same package. Deciding to spend your hard-earned points on your very own weapon was a magical feeling the first time around.

a lot of players wont be attracted to come back if they see all their grinded stuff deleted.

Would probably still say yes on a wipe because we dont need that kind of tryhard qq scum in cRPG anyway.

As a non-tryhard qq scum, I'd rather keep my items and levels, as I'm not going to want to grind it out against all the tryhard qq scum that already got a fully-loomed set of gear within the first week after the wipe. In my experience, the tryhards are the ones that enjoy the grind, while the more casual players just want to have fun - something made easier by being high leveled already.


 

[Bronto]

Skip the Fun. More like shit idea. #gottem

Again giving you an option to "Skip the fun" kills the new player as well. Why even bother with a new character when you can "Skip the fun" play as a higher level, never retire, join a clan, use their looms. No point in grinding, no point in staying.

[Algarn]

Again giving you an option to "Skip the fun" kills the new player as well. Why even bother with a new character when you can "Skip the fun" play as a higher level, never retire, join a clan, use their looms. No point in grinding, no point in staying.

^

Or the reason I was gen 8 on my main character after thousands of hours, and had less than 15 heirlooms on my entire account. Why would I retire when the merc armory had an obscene amount of gear ? Having the XP counter ticking up to the next level is a some kind of objective you naturally set yourself, removing that is basically shooting yourself in the foot, especially when everyone have 2 more levels than you do.