Improving Player Retention

[scrappayeti]

I would argue that the low level quests do not do justice to the server, and a lot of players who might actually enjoy the core activities of the server never get to actually experience them.

Personally I dread rolling a new character, as I find the low level experience boring. If you are new to the server, then you may not play for long enough to see the brilliance of the mid-higher level experience, or as happened to the last player I introduced to the server, you may get perpetually caught in the low levels, and repeat the same less exciting game play over and over.

My first gripe is the delivery quests. It’s not that delivery quests cannot be fun. Herding rothe across undead invested wasteland in EFU:M was a piece of inspired genius. But walking from NPC (a) to NPC (b) is neither fun nor engaging. I suppose it’s vaguely useful to be shown around the town, and some players will enjoy reading the server back story, but many of the locations just seem dead â€" they don’t have any PCs, nothing is happening, nothing is exciting to do there. Delivery quests are the bland staple of so many computer games, why would you open with them? Is that really a good ‘sell’ of the server’s assets? At least EfU:M started with a full bells and whistles mist scene, so you got a taste of the awesome to come.

My second gripe is the low level quests. They are not nearly as good as the higher level ones. This is not an indictment of the DM team, after all, the same DM’s that wrote the super ace mid-higher level quests also made the lower level ones. Rather, it is a reflection of the fact that low level D&D is pretty lousy. The gap between character power is really wide at low levels, so it is hard to strike a balance between making them too hard and too easy. Character hps are all so low that they are also much more prone to the bad luck of a few bad dice rolls than at higher levels. They are also usually done solo, because it is hard to find other low level characters, which prevents the fun of RP and team cooperation. Finally, there is something distinctly un-epic about killing a bunch of beetles, rats or worms.

Additionally, the loot seems pretty odd to the normal gamer. You get gold which doesn’t buy anything useful in shops (PC economy is great, but when you start, this will not be obvious), and a whole lot of rotten, rusted and worm-ridden trash items. The server is filled with quirky and clever loot (also usually rotten, rusted etc, but awesome), but you don’t see much of it at low levels. In EfU:M the initial search-junk-piles-for-stuff quest offered a chance of interesting/special but not game breaking loot. It would be nice if this was more common at low levels.

I started a new character yesterday, and I was thinking about this thread as I played. There were a few examples of the times where I am sure I would have quit in frustration if I didn’t know better things were ahead. On the low level 'salvage pit' dunwarren quest, I spent forever fighting the endboss. I needed a 17 to hit him, and I needed to hit him half a dozen times for him to go down. At one attack every six seconds, that is an average of three minutes plinking away at the same enemy. I rolled pretty badly, and it was closer to five. To make things worse, he walks so slowly there was no risk of him ever doing me any damage. So I had an unlosable fight that was also incredibly slow and repetitive.

Then I completed two thirds of the 'underdark exploration' quest outside the city gates, after struggling through with over 100 hps lost to falls (with tumble at max), I found I couldn’t continue because I didn’t have a shovel (none had dropped in the loot bags, and even as a vet I forgot I needed one). I then had to use the rest of my healing supplies to drag myself back over all the cliffs to exit from the start and receive no reward. Frustrating stuff.

So to summarise, I think the solo game play, the delivery quests, and the dry QAs do not sell the server as well as they could after one or two day’s play. Even though the setting is exotic, the game-play is not (at low levels). Which fantasy game in the last few decades has not begun with deliveries and solo rat/insect dungeons? Moreover, inexperienced players will often spend a considerable length of time in the low level areas, due to the higher death rate. So they can play for days without seeing the really good stuff. And once you die at low levels, subsequent levelling up after the first time is harder each time due to the number of non-repeatable quests.

People might argue that you don’t need to do these low level scripted things, you can just get stuck straight into the mid level quests and the RP. And so you can, but as a new player, tagging along with higher level PCs as a low level character is often fatal.

The last player I introduced had a terrible time staying alive. He died twice before he made it to Mistlocke (remember the holes in the bridge? Good times!). Once he found his footing, he managed to reach the giddy heights of level four. He then went on a PC led chase to hunt a high level PC werewolf (lol) and promptly used all his supplies getting his arse handed to him. He wasn’t killed, but without healing died on the next quest, then the next. He ended up falling to level 1, and quit because he couldn’t find a quest he could do (minimum quest level was 2 on all the QAs). Even as a veteran I shy away from doing mid level quests at low levels unless I have a very safe character, because the risks are so high, and the thought of dropping levels and repeating the basic quests all over again is terrifying.

 Most of the PC or DM inspired events are going to be beyond the capacity of a low level character, and are quite frequently lethal. You will be ineffective in PvP, and big DM quests often seem to have a few low levels casualties to AoE and new player enthusiasm.

However, I have a few suggestions to fix the problems as I see them.

Firstly, I think the level range could be compressed at the bottom without any loss to the core game play of the server. Currently we are accelerated straight to level 3, but I think this could be 4, or even 5, without all hell breaking loose. It would get people into the action faster, and improve the game experience for vets and noobs alike. There should also be a mechanism to keep players from falling below this level (repeatable sub 4 or 5 easy quests that give you a level, for example).

I know that some of the problems I have described are due to the current system being weighted carefully to prevent vet system rorting, but if this comes at the cost of new player excitement, it is not worth it.  

Secondly, could we have early quests that use game mechanics to make higher level PCs want to interact with new characters?

For example, a quest could provide a low level character with a lump of unrefined (and undroppable) baublium. The stuff can only be refined in a wild part of the machine, and going there will require an escort. The level range of the NPCs is determined by the levels of who guard the low level character, so it stays a challenge, and they all get xp rewards, including high level players. At the end the low level character’s player feels like a star, because they got to interact with other PCs and be the focus of an interesting adventure. The other PCs would be on the lookout to do this quest as often as possible, because a) the town desperately needs baublium and b) they get xp at any level. This quest could be a once only, and might even come with instructions on how to make a sending to ask for help in the task.

Thirdly, perhaps we could do with a 'new player' focused DM? I understand that there is some degree of specialisation in tasks, and perhaps a DM who focused mostly on the new and low level characters would be a worthy investment of time. They could focus more exclusively on spicing the early level quests and giving new players a richer experience. There are lots of fun things a DM can do with new people to town â€" in a way they are ideal puppets for political intrigue, criminal shenanigans and generally wandering around without suspicion.

Apologies for the length of this post, and I hope it didn’t sound too critical. I love EfU in general, and I think the general quality of the quests is top notch. I just think the lower level experience doesn’t sell the whole package as well as it could.

[The Old Hack]

Don't apologise, Scrappa. It was an excellent and well thought out post and I felt it raised a lot of good points. I like the idea of a 'new player' DM very much, but may I suggest an alternative? Have players be on volunteer duty specifically to help total newcomers to the server and have there be some mechanism to let the newcomers make contact with them. This could be as simple as something like the "summon Watcher" mechanism built into the NPC Watchers and issue a call to all players who are on the newcomer welcome wagon team.

I myself will happily show newcomers around and if such a team is formed will be glad to be part of it. The team would then be go-to guys for the new arrivals so they would know it was always OK to ask them questions. I know they could just send Tells at random but it can be intimidating to do that on a brand new server and this way they would know it would be OK for them to bug these guys at least. Also, they would always have at least some people they could go to for RP until they have learned the ropes a bit better.

As to the rest of your post, I am going to confine myself to saying that it all sounds great and I would love to see some of these ideas implemented. Being the technical non-genius I am, I am unsure how much I could contribute towards working them out, but I would love to see it done!

EDIT: I just realised that ideally the newcomer companions should not be of too high level themselves so they could participate in low level activities. Not sure how that should be handled. Maybe they could keep an alt around at low level, for example. I am not quite sure I like that, however, for it would give the newcomers an IC friend who was not that regularly around. :/

~tOH.

[Damien]

Some sort of tutorial in the beginning would be great, tbh. Imagine some npc shouting for you to use a ballista to shoot back enemies before telling you to scavenge some debris for supplies before hearing the rumbling of the dread army coming, that npc telling you to use a grappling hook to get to the portal to sanctuary before he is mercilessly killed.

I would agree with scrappy totally as well as saying perhaps try to add incentive to involve lower level characters in some way, I took two low level gnomes recently on kobolds and all that did for me to increase my chances of dying and lessen my reward. It was enjoyable no less, but I need to start resupplying in order to do at again and such a result would make me less likely to consider involving low levels on the harder quests.

I would say a quicker fix to all this would be increasing the amount of quests about then decreasing the experience. From what I've seen the dms want to see the players all around the same mid level, so it would solve that issue rather well and stop all the grudges from the fact some players are better at questing so level faster.

[SN]

I believe that most of the people here (or any other D&D/setting X RPG) would prefer to spend their time performing 'heroic' feats and 'epic' stuff.

This applies to myself , as well.

And while understanding the fact that characters here are flung into an apocalyptic setting, we still want to do all those above things. Save princesses from towers. Slay dragons with twenty heads.

Forcing people to remain at 'lower' levels for a longer time to perform more 'mundane' tasks, such as deliveries, errands, killing rats in a damp tavern cellar... and in fact struggling to do so might be great fun for the first few times... but I dare say that 90% of the people here have done this over and over again and not only on EFU, but in their 'RP' career, whether it's tabletop, or other computer games .. and they are not really interested to do it for the XXXXX-th time.

As I mentioned on IRC today, I'm off mind that an intro akin to the intro we had in EFU:M, with amazing narrative, that actually explains the history/lore of the server, that puts your starting character at L3 or 4, with a bag of mundane supplies that allows you to survive a mid-level quest with a party, would be a much better idea than having to do 50 errand quests for 50 XP each.

Those 'simple' low-level quests should, of course, remain, in case one's character dies horribly 5 times in a row doing something epic so you can wind back to something more 'survivable'.

And that brings us to another point, being the XP hit upon death. It's massive. And even with the implementation of the 'permanent' DM XP, it still remains massive unless you accumulate thousands of permanent XP.

People lose interest, having to grind back to a point where they actually have a dim chance of survival in the unforgivable, apocalyptic setting, by doing all the 'mundane' tasks again.

I'm personally not really interested  in role-playing the 'Oh my gawd, I'm so terrified I pissed my pants seeing this horrible Hook Horror Baby that can crush me in two blows ' part.

I really, really loved the balance of EFU:A/M when it comes to questing/XP. The supplies were really over the top, that is for sure, but we suddenly from 200% to 50%.

Which brings me to another point - with EFU becoming more and more sandbox-ish these days. While at times it may be fun to gather ingredients A, B, C, D, [...], X, Y, Z in order to get/create/have Mediocre-thing, when it becomes so stretched out that every simple thing becomes a chore, because you need to do 20 MUNDANE things in order to obtain 1 MEDIOCRE thing, and then obtain 20 MEDIOCRE things in order to obtain 1 'Good-quality' thing.... It's a bit too much.

Why? Simply because there's never enough free time to spend gaming these days. I wouldn't want to spend a few hours every day doing MUNDANE things to get that one MEDIOCRE thing, because I simply don't have time for that. School/Work/Life, name it however you want it.


All the above points, of course, suddenly become void when there's epic story stuff going on, but that happens every now and then. The time in between should be filled out with meaningful things to do for PC's instead of obtaining 'ticks' of 1-10 XP/gp.

<3


EDIT: P.S. I haven't read what I wrote as I'm at work, so my apologies if there's any typos or horrible grammar mistakes :)

[Big Orc Man]

You're definitely right, SN, that people prefer being heroic and epic.
 
The problem is, if players start out being heroic and epic, there's no tension with regard to death or permanent consequence.  They can just roll up another character.
 
By forcing a certain element of sacrifice, suffering, and even tedium, the idea of perma-death becomes truly scary because of all of the effort lost.
 
The trick is balancing it to a proper level.  You do make a good point that perhaps the balance is a little too far in the direction of tedium.  We don't want players planning an awesome character, staring down the barrel of what feels like a long slog, shrugging, and logging out.

[Howlando]

I just want to mention that I'm paying attention to this thread and am working on some changes that will hopefully address some of these concerns in a balanced way. I'm aiming for more fun, less tedium, an easier time for new players but still a meaningful lowbie experience.

Stay tuned in the coming days... I promise some changes are coming.

[gravekeeper]

I would like to point out that it gets harder and harder to recover a level after you lose it. The first run for level 6 will be easier than the second and the second will be easier than the third.

You got more supplies, right. But the options of quest will fade (some got limited times to be taken). You won't get the exploration XP back. You will be more and more restricted to mundane and repetitive tasks.

If you got a group to support you, then you are still in goo shape and probably you will manage to recover it in time with the help of your allies.

Although, if you suddenly are an exiled person, or you happen to have made most of the server hunt you, a regular death will strike a much heavier blow upon you than it would strike on regular PCs. It means now that you are being hunted while you are weaker and while you have even fewer ways of climbing back to prominence.

Right, you can work towards besting the obstacle. Although, that will be often the reason you retire a PC or give up into trying to save it when you're caught. Accumulated frustrations are not rarely the reason of some of our awesome stories ending.

[Damien]

You're definitely right, SN, that people prefer being heroic and epic.
 
The problem is, if players start out being heroic and epic, there's no tension with regard to death or permanent consequence.  They can just roll up another character.
 
By forcing a certain element of sacrifice, suffering, and even tedium, the idea of perma-death becomes truly scary because of all of the effort lost.
 
The trick is balancing it to a proper level.  You do make a good point that perhaps the balance is a little too far in the direction of tedium.  We don't want players planning an awesome character, staring down the barrel of what feels like a long slog, shrugging, and logging out.

I would say this isn't true really, it may have felt that way but I never wanted any of my characters to die so soon even in efua/m. It's awesome to hear that something has come of it, I've already wanted to quit three times after three characters died pre level 7 in pvp to players who have more time than I do to invest the time needed to become higher level and gain more supplies.

[Frenzied]

One thing that I've tried to do (but haven't been able to for as much as I'd like due to IC circumstances and level) is to take new PCs and new players out on the quests that they will be a horrific burden and danger on. This does a few things:

If someone OOCly isn't mechanically inclined, it can teach them party mechanics that may be EFU in particular OR broad NWN stuff.

If a character is ICly green behind the ears then you're grooming Pisspants McGoblinscreamer into Skullcrusher Flayerbiter by throwing him into a trial by fire.

Both of these bring our new people into the fold and give them a little push forward when it comes to the grind, and even when a quest instance goes HORRIBLY FUCKING WRONG it can be a fun play experience because of how adverse the conditions can become (like bringing five wizards into Shaggaland.)

Someone getting their butt kicked can make that become part of a character's identity, but someone getting slaughtered until they don't want to play the character anymore is not a good thing.

If you're a mechanically sound player and/or character, groom the next generation even if it makes things harder. It makes for a better server when there is intermixing between the character generations, and you don't necessarily need to have quests designed around that intermixing (even though those would be cool, yes.)

[Siren]

Maybe I'm one of the few who'll disagree with wanting our characters to do "epic" stuff and perform heroic feats... Part of the server's allure to me is feeling like we're all hopeless and face an enormous amount of adversities. I wouldn't really want to feel like my character's immensely powerful... I like feeling scared of leaving Sanctuary, and I am. To the point that I never ventured further than Lower on my own. Being afraid of what could be out there is such an exciting feeling...

That cliché of the baby hook horror that tears your character apart in two hits is what makes me play here rather than elsewhere. The server is always thrilling and if a monster's big, it'll probably spell the end of your character. I feel like anything different from that would be a bastardization of the server's atmosphere.

To me the quests are really engaging the way they are, I find the enemies I fight to be very fitting for the amount of power I imagine our characters having.
If I wanted my character to have the power of a deity I could play just about any other server out there, quite frankly they're all the same, full of cliché pseudo-mysterious hooded characters with insane gear and sitting on epic levels. But here it's different, I like that you feel powerful because of your allies and RP, rather than the drops and XP you get from the pixels you slay.

I play EfU a bit like it were survival horror and I love it that way. Not saying that major stuff should never happen but if everyone standing in freedom square had seen and slain dragons, it makes me wonder how immersive the server could still be...

I believe I might be speaking for a minority though, since I prefer low-magic settings and am not fond of FR by default. However, the 2 EfU chapters I played in were very satisfying, so I can have faith that as long as the DM team stay truthful to their vision of this PW I will always be a fan.

In regards to the death penalty I think that it's fine, I am not particularly bothered by having to do mundane tasks either but I definitely agree that there needs to be more of them, a lot of quests have take limits and going down from level 6 means either hours of worminging each time or days of repeating the same 3 quests to get back to where you were...

I think the content and activities that are in are very good, but there's a deficit of things to do after suffering a death penalty in my opinion!

I'm really excited to hear about changes in the horizon too! =D

[goate]

What Siren said.

[efuincarnate]

Alot of sound ideas here, but the one that pairs vets with new players seems to stand out.  It almost seems like it would start as an OOC thing..a list if you would on the forums, of Vet Players handles, their IG active chars, and TZ.  A new player could, once they find the forums of course, look at the list, and send a quick tell ig to the player "Hey, I am new, got a second?"  the rest could easily be handled in game.  

Doing it all ingame, is a grand idea, but I think a little OOC co ordination is necessary, to make it happen. Just to streamline the initial communication. Perhaps?...

and/or.... There could be some sort of Faction ingame? Instead of running alts, those who wish to volunteer could have chars as alts who are in game only to meet, escort, roleplay with, and interact with new arrivals?  Still an alt to your epic plot making main, but instead of logging that 20th alt when your bored...log in your  "Insert Witty name of Faction here" character.  Something you intentionally keep low level, or even chars capped at low level in the faction? So new players always have a party to draw from? Rather then DM possessed NPC's ..this would almost be Assistant DM players..in that they solely log in to interact with new arrivals, or just those getting a new main off the ground. I for one would use this as an alt, when my Main is inactive for whatever reason that day. Maybe the Faction has some perks, to make survivability more optimal, for sacrificing higher levels.? Or..not., roaming around with a level 8 when your 2, a kind of mentor, is pretty nifty as well, when done right. Just spit balling ideas here, but the whole thing seems like another way to add great dimension, give vets yet another outlet to explore, and really give new folks a welcoming hand up upon arrival.


tl/dr- OOC forum to coordinate new players to vets who are interested in helping them

DM Faction that exists solely for this purpose, giving alts an altruistic reason for being! Perks if level capped, or just some simple DM attentions to make them stand out in game to new players?

[Kleonogogy]

alts

Personally I don't think this'd be a good idea. It would be good to find a system wherein new players can become affiliated with veterans on their main (I think this is done successfully already by the likes of Vault Shrike - the Wayfinders have always been warm to newbies) - but not on alts.

Reason for this being the nature of these relationships between veteran and new player will naturally become progressively interdependent as the new player flourishes and becomes established on the server. The alt character will, over time, develop certain obligations to be online as a support role to the new player - taking the veteran's time away from their main.

Restricting these alts' ability to become involved in the story and progression of the new player beyond a certain threshold will seem extremely artificial and forced.

[noctem]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I am under the impression that part of the Civil Service's role IG is to be a sort of welcoming organization. Meeting and greeting new PCs, finding at least a bit of information pertaining to the character and perhaps pointing them in particular direction in regards to where they might fit in in the grand scheme of things.

Got a burly fighter-esque new PC? Through IG and IC interactions, the Civil Service might nudge that PC towards the Spellguard Auxillary, the Society of the Ordered Mind or possibly the Watch. Or at the very least, make them aware these organizations exist and that they might have interest in the PC.

[efuincarnate]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I am under the impression that part of the Civil Service's role IG is to be a sort of welcoming organization. Meeting and greeting new PCs, finding at least a bit of information pertaining to the character and perhaps pointing them in particular direction in regards to where they might fit in in the grand scheme of things.

Got a burly fighter-esque new PC? Through IG and IC interactions, the Civil Service might nudge that PC towards the Spellguard Auxillary, the Society of the Ordered Mind or possibly the Watch. Or at the very least, make them aware these organizations exist and that they might have interest in the PC.

I had no idea..truthfully, had no clue what they did, besides run messages or make sendings. My own fault, I suppose. The words Civil Service kind of dissuaded any further investigation on my point.  Just did not have the interest, perhaps this organization needs some PR?