Player retention and you: brainstorming

[Dresan]

Unfortunately the facts don't support this.

You are mistaking facts for opinion.

The only time that stats matter the most is at the beginning when your offense and defense is shit...and everyone else's offense and defense is shit. Again the longest lived warriors are usually the ones who win any fight because their offense/defense are higher then everyone elses. And for those rare situations where you know of another warrior who's grinded as long as you, has equal skills in everything and happens to have better stats then you...well please refer to the 'murder, betray and corruption' part of the game.

Then you'll be the best around, get all the promotions, win all the competitions regardless of stats. For every other situation the solution should be spice.

[Alesan]

I feel like this entire stats discussion is going to get branched off pretty soon.

[Norcal]

I feel like this entire stats discussion is going to get branched off pretty soon.

Yes. Hint hint.

Do they matter? Obviously they do.  It might be that the way they matter is unclear to us, or me at any rate, because I am no coder.

I once had a d-elf with poor strength.  She could not use most weapons, only a long knife. Even some hatchets were too much for her.  No spears. There was only one bow in the known she could even think about pulling. I felt she was unplayable, yet staff would not change the stat because I had not prioritized it. They were very helpful in other ways though, so no worries there.

That elf went on to become a PK machine.  She could and did take out anyone, multi RL year warriors, witches of all stripes. She could kill dujat and most any gith.  Why?  She had very good agility, she was light weight and she could not be hit. And she knew how to use poison on the witches.

So the stats mattered. If she had not received the high agility she would not have lived.  It allowed me to play an otherwise unplayable PC, and to have amazing fun.  

[Dresan]

Yeah. It should probably get branched off.

If people are really finding the randomness of it all jarring, the only solution would be that every starts off at good or v.good. And then can use special apps/karma to bump up thier stat score by one during creation. Thats probably the only fair way I can see without having everyone and their mothers, running around with AI in all their stats because they've joined the right clans.

Any stat allocation sytems like buldars gate would just end up making cookie cutter min/max builds with people rolling until they got the best possible outcome.

[ibusoe]

You are mistaking facts for opinion.

The only time that stats matter the most is at the beginning when your offense and defense is shit...and everyone else's offense and defense is shit. Again the longest lived warriors are usually the ones who win any fight because their offense/defense are higher then everyone elses. And for those rare situations where you know of another warrior who's grinded as long as you, has equal skills in everything and happens to have better stats then you...well please refer to the 'murder, betray and corruption' part of the game.

Then you'll be the best around, get all the promotions, win all the competitions regardless of stats. For every other situation the solution should be spice.

You've got that turned around.

[Malken]

Man, stat discussions on the GDB are useless.

Each time someone complains about stats, you can always count on a couple of people showing up and giving example on how their most favorite PC ever had shitty strength and 60 hp, or how after two years of RL twinking they could beat nearly any new warrior n00bs showing up in the sparring circle.

We get it, there's some players who love to play really crappy characters with everything going against them and that's super easy to do if that's what you want, roll a 13 year old kid with random stats and there you go.

But some of us don't play games just so we can continue our shit life after a hard days' work just so we can struggle once more in virtual reality with the hope that someday we don't get devoured by the Armageddon version of turtles with teeth.

Anyway, this is kinda moot because after years of Armageddon'ing and riding my shitty stat'ed characters into the nearest 'met, I've long discovered that these stat problems can be mitigated by 26, strength, agility, endurance, wisdom - yo.

tldr; If all else fails, 26 the shit out of your character.

[Norcal]

Man, stat discussions on the GDB are useless.

Each time someone complains about stats, you can always count on a couple of people showing up and giving example on how their most favorite PC ever had shitty strength and 60 hp, or how after two years of RL twinking they could beat nearly any new warrior n00bs showing up in the sparring circle.

We get it, there's some players who love to play really crappy characters with everything going against them and that's super easy to do if that's what you want, roll a 13 year old kid with random stats and there you go.

But some of us don't play games just so we can continue our shit life after a hard days' work just so we can struggle once more in virtual reality with the hope that someday we don't get devoured by the Armageddon version of turtles with teeth.

Anyway, this is kinda moot because after years of Armageddon'ing and riding my shitty stat'ed characters into the nearest 'met, I've long discovered that these stat problems can be mitigated by 26, strength, agility, endurance, wisdom - yo.

tldr; If all else fails, 26 the shit out of your character.

OK Malken, , for those of us who are old, what does 26 mean in the way that you are using it?

[Malken]

OK Malken, , for those of us who are old, what does 26 mean in the way that you are using it?

Age, of course.

If you want to play a 13 year old kid, still make him 26 but just say that he has some sort of Armageddon genetic deformation that makes him look like he's in his mid-twenties. Mutation's a bitch!

[Norcal]

OK Malken, , for those of us who are old, what does 26 mean in the way that you are using it?

Age, of course.

If you want to play a 13 year old kid, still make him 26 but just say that he has some sort of Armageddon genetic deformation that makes him look like he's in his mid-twenties. Mutation's a bitch!

Ahhh....kind of like the mutation that makes me look 26 in real life. Thanks.

[Wyrmboy]

I am so sick of these kids in the game, my next pc is going to be the old guy that was picked on by all the kids growing up and now wants to kill them all ..I think I will make him look like Santa Claus so fair warning.

[Dresan]

I personally really dislike the initial skill grind, the month you need to play to be able to perform a role adequately, to simply be of some more use to others at the beginning and have more change of being involved in things. It should still not make anyone a monster who fights shit sitting or who can one-shot anything. This is because I don't believe offense and defense should be touched.

Even with high stats, alot of NPC outside scrabs will still kill you. Thats not a bad thing.  

[Refugee]

As for initial grind, I only say that sponsored combat roles should get a pass on this.  Really.  How do you become a Byn sergeant that can hardly fight?  They've been runners and troopers for years before this.  Set them up so they can focus on doing the job, they don't really have time to do the grind and it's just jarring.

Otherwise, I dislike grinding but it kind of seems like it should exist.  I'm not sure why, maybe I'm just trained to think so by 40 years of gaming.  I always disliked starting my D&D characters off at level 10 or 6 or whatever, it seemed to rob them of something important.  They felt more like throw-aways.  And I guess they were, since they'd just been made for some specific adventure.

[seidhr]

What about when stats impede you from being able to progress with skills? Poor wisdom not letting you progress past jman in some skills?

I have no idea if this is a real thing or not, or how people end up knowing this stuff. Yet if true, there is a solid argument for some stat changes based on the guild.

That isn't actually how wisdom works.  Having terrible wisdom does not prevent you from getting to maximum skill level, it just slows the process down.  (and in most cases, unless you are trying to min/max your grind with some formalized process with an egg timer and a notebook - it won't impact you at all)

In some cases, having a good stat will actually give you a lower cap on your skill advancement, a specific example:

Some years back I had a pretty long-lived desert elf who was quite young.  Most you know that young PCs get a negative influence to strength and a positive influence to agility.  This particular PC had pretty average strength but exceptional agility.  As your character ages, these stats can go up and down.  Agility will tend to go down and the others will tend to go up.

Anyway, I had gotten to 'advanced' climbing pretty early on in this PC's life, and he literally never failed a climb check after that point.  I went on for several months with no failed climbs and thus, no progression past advanced.  Then I got the "You have aged one year, happy birthday!" (or whatever it is) message one day upon logging in, and checked 'score' - sure enough my strength had gone up to above average, woo!  But my agility had gone down to extremely good.

I went on about my business and while climbing, suddenly I (gasp) failed a climb.  Then later that same play session I failed again.  A few more days of playing and I was still failing climb from time to time - and it had been months, literally, since I had failed prior to this.  I checked 'skills' after a few days of this and notice that my climb skill had gone from 'advanced' to 'master' and then I never failed a climb check for the rest of that PC's life.

So tldr is that if you have really high stats it can make it harder to gain skills because you won't ever fail at doing something, due to the bonuses given by that stat.  Climb is positively influenced by agility.  It all evens out in the end. 

True story.

[Patuk]

The interaction thing people have been mentioning hits really close to home for me.

I'm Dutch, which means it's six hours later here than it is even on the US' east coast. I can take a look at Allanak's rumor board right now and go 'oh hey nice an RPT if only IT DIDN'T FUCKING START AT 3 AM FUUUU' and chalk it up to a shitty timezone for the umpteenth time, given that this kind of things constantly. If lack of interaction were a game-killing thing for me, I'd not play at all.

Buuuut then there are those days where I can stay up past midnight a bit and watch the amount of players rise, and I just get.. Shocked. I've seen numbers climb up to 50+ people online, and somehow have the Gaj be populated with all of two people, yours truly included, in the middle of the IC night. Does it surprise you that people might have a hard time getting into the game when there's nobody at all present in what's supposedly the go-to hub for people to socialise a bit? In a similar vein, the same Allanaki board I mentioned just now mentions frightfully few things in the way of GMH or Byn recruitment drives - compared to the way I remember(memory tends to be flawed) entire units' worth of hunters, soldiers and mercenaries hang out to drink and talk about random shit, taverns and public spaces seem to be ghost towns.

If you want people to stay around, especially newer ones, it may reallllllly help for the game not to be so empty and interaction to happen in social cliques this much. It didn't work well for Tuluk, I don't see it working out well in our current game's incarnation.

[Alesan]

It really is one of the biggest issues, the more I think on it. In the other thread that sparked off this one about conflict, some good points are brought up, but before conflict can happen, there has to be interaction. Interaction can't happen if other PCs are literally nowhere to be found.

[Iiyola]

I did wonder where the hell everyone is when there are indeed 50+ players online and only 2 PC's in the Gaj. WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYONE??

[Delirium]

Out there doing stuff... instead of stuffing themselves into taverns for boring small-talk?

I have a love/hate relationship with tavern RP - it's a great way to make connections but once you've made those connections it really detracts from Getting Stuff Done.

[nauta]

I did wonder where the hell everyone is when there are indeed 50+ players online and only 2 PC's in the Gaj. WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYONE??

Some muds have a 'notify' system or a 'who' system that tells you who is in the area you are in.  I've liked them because it can feel frustrating to see that there are a lot of people on but nobody in the public spots.  I read in a thread why the 'clan who' system was shut off, but what about an 'allanak who' system? -- it returns the number of people in allanak itself.  Or something.

I guess it's minutely less frustrating to know that there are 50 people on, but 30 of them aren't in the city or something.  Or maybe that's just silly.

ETA: So that's something for staff to consider, but for the newbies: we might consider swinging by the Gaj more often, posting rumours, etc., so we can hook up with those newbies.  Everyone does their part and all that.  Because you know who is in the Gaj? Newbies, city elves, and lonely gemmed, that's who.

[Alesan]

Out there doing stuff... instead of stuffing themselves into taverns for boring small-talk?

I have a love/hate relationship with tavern RP - it's a great way to make connections but once you've made those connections it really detracts from Getting Stuff Done.

It's replies like these that sort of discouraged me from jumping in the rat's nest of commenting on not finding players. There's always people who know how to make contacts, and then they can always find people to interact with even if all social hubs are dead. But we aren't all like that. We need that social hub. Even if you don't.


I also realize the difficulty of this situation. It's not like we're asking players to spend more time in the Gaj or whatever if that's not what your characters want to do. But at the same time, when what's supposed to be one of the central social hubs of the game is empty for large periods of time, including peak time, it really does cut down interaction possibilities.

[Patuk]

It's not so much about the tavern RP for me, the Gaj could be a public square for all I care. I just think it's really unhealthy for the game if there's not a lot of large-scale socialising between different groups going on or if it's nigh-impossible for new players/characters to actually make those contacts you mentioned.

Besides.. Why is everything about 'getting stuff done'? It's no wonder that people burn out if all you're playing is a character who's really just a tool for a desire to accomplish X. You're telling me 48 out of the 50 people who are not at the Gaj ever are doing so because they play characters who never feel like going out or drinking a beer for a bit?

[Delirium]

If it advances your story to be in the bar, sure.

If you have a limited amount of time to play and want to choose between advancing X plot or getting Y done or sitting in the bar being bored just in case somebody wants interaction...

[Patuk]

50 people don't all have highly limited time to play and are rushing about to tell assassin X or private Y to do Z. It doesn't happen.

[Delirium]

So maybe they're focusing on intra-clan roleplay as that's what most immediately impacts their day to day enjoyment.

I'm not saying that hanging out in taverns is bad. I'm saying that it's often not conducive to what the player wants to be doing.

So... if you want to fix tavern attendance, fix that.

[Patuk]

You can RP with people in your clan inside public places just fine. Bynners punching each other for a bit is was a common sight.

And, again, if people are so highly extremely very busy with their clans that they cannot roleplay normally functioning human beings who like to wind down and take things easy, we have one cause for people getting burnt out (and not joining clans) right there.

[ibusoe]

50 people don't all have highly limited time to play and are rushing about to tell assassin X or private Y to do Z. It doesn't happen.

You're request to have more PC-PC interaction doesn't really make sense with the game atmosphere.

That being said, it's natural for any player to want this, so if you want more interaction, and you live in Holland, pick a time (next week) that's actually good for you, post about an HRPT, put in a minimum of time organizing.