Player retention and you: brainstorming

[Alesan]

Imagine what it's like for a new player if some of us take a month to get into a new PC.

I don't know how many of you found it an enchanting new experience and had no trouble getting drawn in, I know that wasn't my experience and it probably wasn't others' as well. It takes me at least a month or two to feel "at home" in a new game and that process nearly starts over for me every time I write up a new character. It's draining.

[Dresan]

It gets down right tedious after a several years of the same thing. 

I dunno, Lizzie, I guess it might depends on your definition of 'never really encountered much trouble getting involved in stuff right out of chargen'. More specifically chances are what you consider 'time well spent ' is clearly not the same for me.

[Renenutet]

I'd be curious: have any of the suggestions in this thread have been taken up or adopted?  I've heard a lot of staff say that they do that already, and a couple times a staff member said they liked an idea and were tossing it upstairs...  Perhaps a small write-up when staff has time of what suggestions were taken up would be helpful

Also, just for my own sake, I'd like to know what the official staff position is on account notes:

1) do all negative account notes (be they 'account' or 'character') get e-mailed to players?  (This is what Euronymous's post suggests.)  

2) do only negative account notes that are 'account' get e-mailed to players? (This is what seidhr's posts state.)

Thanks!
(And maybe a word or two on the difference between an 'account' and a 'character' note.)

I had wanted to respond to this yesterday. I didn't have a chance to do so.

First, yes, we have been following this thread. We have been talking about those things we can do right now, those things we can do soon and those things we can think about a bit more. Admittedly some suggestions more than other.

We're absolutely listening. I want to assure you, when we talk about retention, it's not just numbers. We want you guys to log in and have fun. It's not always stated straight up, but we have a lot of enthusiasm for the game, and a lot of enthusiasm about you, the players. It's gratifying when the players have fun. We get excited when you succeed. We also get excited when you fail, but have a great time anyway. Maybe we can figure out how to say that more.

Do we send emails when people do something right? I'm not sure. I'm still pretty new.  I'm sure we do sometimes. Maybe we could and should do it more.

[Jihelu]

I really feel like there should be a "Shit you should know before you join" page aimed at new players.
Bowing.
How to do basic things like hunting or something.
All that.
Could even throw it into a tutorial like the fancy things mentioned a while back.
I feel like the game isn't very newbie friendly and that is both a good and bad thing in the sense of dying over and over is fun and all but not fun when you don't know /why/.

[Old Kank]

yes, we have been following this thread. We have been talking about those things we can do right now, those things we can do soon and those things we can think about a bit more.

Thank you for posting this.

I feel like there's been a lot of momentum and positivity with this thread, and it's nice to see a lot of engagement with the staff here.  I think it would be encouraging to see something concrete come out of all this, beyond just spurring conversations on the staff side.

For my part, I'm going to make the staff a standing offer:  I would be happy to make a GUI building app of some sort or another (or spearhead the effort at least).  I'm not a web/software developer, but I'm pretty sure I can cobble something together that would let players submit nicely formatted scripts that staffers could just plug into their clients.  If there's interest, feel free to send me a pm or email.

[Marauder Moe]

I really feel like there should be a "Shit you should know before you join" page aimed at new players.

There literally is: www.armageddon.org/help/view/What%20You%20Know

Though a tip about bowing would probably be a nice inclusion.

[whitt]

I really feel like there should be a "Shit you should know before you join" page aimed at new players.

There literally is: www.armageddon.org/help/view/What%20You%20Know

Though a tip about bowing would probably be a nice inclusion.

I kind of feel there should be a coded link to this:

http://www.armageddon.org/intro/walkthrough.php#entering

On a board in the hall of kings.

[Erythil]

I really feel like there should be a "Shit you should know before you join" page aimed at new players.

There literally is: www.armageddon.org/help/view/What%20You%20Know

Though a tip about bowing would probably be a nice inclusion.

Also 'you are illiterate.'

Most people aren't going to clue in on that one.  Especially since we have notice-board objects in the first room players zone into.

[Jihelu]

Eh, maybe more info then. I'd have to find something that would stump me and probably have some caustic effect before thinking of more additions.
How to identify nobles/templars would be helpful.
(IT's a bit easy to spot a templar tho

[nauta]

...
Also, just for my own sake, I'd like to know what the official staff position is on account notes:

1) do all negative account notes (be they 'account' or 'character') get e-mailed to players?  (This is what Euronymous's post suggests.)  

2) do only negative account notes that are 'account' get e-mailed to players? (This is what seidhr's posts state.)

Thanks!
(And maybe a word or two on the difference between an 'account' and a 'character' note.)

I had wanted to respond to this yesterday. I didn't have a chance to do so.

First, yes, we have been following this thread. We have been talking about those things we can do right now, those things we can do soon and those things we can think about a bit more. Admittedly some suggestions more than other.

We're absolutely listening. I want to assure you, when we talk about retention, it's not just numbers. We want you guys to log in and have fun. It's not always stated straight up, but we have a lot of enthusiasm for the game, and a lot of enthusiasm about you, the players. It's gratifying when the players have fun. We get excited when you succeed. We also get excited when you fail, but have a great time anyway. Maybe we can figure out how to say that more.

Do we send emails when people do something right? I'm not sure. I'm still pretty new.  I'm sure we do sometimes. Maybe we could and should do it more.

Thanks! 

em coughs and casually points to the bolded bit.

[Adhira]

The staff side rule is that if you add a negative note to a players account you are meant to open up a request  to let them know, if appropriate give suggestions for improvement/change or further discuss and clarify the issue with them.

In general staff only send messages about notes added to accoun info, not player info.  The reason for this is that notes placed in pinto are generally just informational notes for that PC to aid with animations.  For example if they've visited a particular spot and got a certain reaction we will know to 'ramp up' the reaction next time.  Or maybe they pissed off an npc and we want to note it in case we go anywhere with it plot wise.  In other words we don't consider this field of notes to be the place where we are commenting on RP or the account t and it should not be the place for a negative note type,  just j to for staff on the PC.

[Harmless]

I've been trying to figure out what it is that keeps me from enjoying the game like I used to. In my brainstorming I have determined that it boils down mostly to incredible fatigue at having played so many characters and "failed" at achieving my goals for those PCs, despite hundreds of hours of work (a 25 days played PC is 600 hours of gaming time).

The most upsetting losses are those to combat against NPCs or imm-controlled NPCs. Losing a 25-35 days played PC to threats like drov beetles/carru/kryl/tarantula/etc is likely the least interesting death I can think of.

These PCs that had goals like "raise my child", or "become a leader," which I had made significant progress towards (becoming recruited and promoted in a clan, having a PARTNER to help raise a child with, etc), and yet all that effort, those hundreds of hours are lost in a few seconds because of a nasty combination of the random number generator and my determination to play a character realistically in combat situations; for example, if I am playing a magicker, I won't ALWAYS walk around with every single magickal buff I can put on if it doesn't feel realistic. Or if playing a soldier, I will generally follow orders, try to support my team, rather than be a total coward and flee what I OOCly know is a sure-death situation.

Maybe the first few times I lost a PC this way I could shrug it off and try again from scratch, but I think now that I am on PC 40+ or so, and I have lost a 15-25 days played PC around a dozen times, I've had it. In particular, I am really, really jaded about the importance of attributes, HP total, clan participation and the PLAYERS I interact with and are led by. If something in those factors is sub-par according to my experience, then I just say "fuck it."

I thought of a solution, however. To preface this, people have stated here many times that skill bumps are rather meaningless; they shave off some hours from your grind which is nice, but it has no real impact on the final outcome of your PC. After all, for most of the above PCs, the skills were up to a decent level; parry having been branched, weapon skills to at least journeyman, etc.

The solution therefore is that we should be allowed to use karma/CGP to boost our attributes. One possible mechanism is allowing us to select a few attributes to boost soon after character creation; let us get the attributes to where we think they need to be and we'll be more willing to take the plunge of hundreds of hours of gaming time to build a character and flesh out their story. Another possibility would be to allow attribute boosting requests once again for more long-lived PCs; give us that hope that even if the initial roll wasn't so good that we can eventually improve it up to a reasonable limit.

The current standard among our players to handle a bad stats roll is to just play the character much more riskily until they inevitably die if you weren't happy with the stats you got. I think that's fine, but sometimes that isn't what I want for a PC; maybe it's a special app, and I don't like the idea of having waited for 2 weeks to get approval and not being able to app another extended subguild for a month. Maybe it's because the PC has a background I like or they met another PC and formed a meaningful relationship early on. Whatever the case, "playing risky" isn't something I do also for realism purposes. I'd much, much rather just be able to slowly build that PC up to where they can succeed than keep going through concept after concept.

It doesn't have to be much. Maybe the highest you could ever "boost" an attribute in any one category should be "very good." Maybe the most you can do is boost one stat per IC year. Whatever the limits, even a small amount of improvement would be very meaningful.

[Lizzie]

Harmless, your attributes already go up/down dependent on character age.

If you start out as a teen, your wisdom will be lower than if that exact same dice-roll occurred with a character 10 years older.
The same teen's strength will be better than if the same dice roll was on the same character at age 60.

If that teen lives to be 60, you will see a few changes in those attributes, simply for longevity.

You're frustrated that your 30-day-old character dies to an NPC. I'm not sure what else you're expecting. Are you expecting for your characters to die of old age? If you are, then your character shouldn't leave home, ever. That is the "solution" to the problem of a 30-day-played character dying to an NPC, whether staff animated or random generated. Or, arrange for a PC to kill yours instead.

[Jave]

I've been trying to figure out what it is that keeps me from enjoying the game like I used to. In my brainstorming I have determined that it boils down mostly to incredible fatigue at having played so many characters and "failed" at achieving my goals for those PCs, despite hundreds of hours of work (a 25 days played PC is 600 hours of gaming time).

The most upsetting losses are those to combat against NPCs or imm-controlled NPCs. Losing a 25-35 days played PC to threats like drov beetles/carru/kryl/tarantula/etc is likely the least interesting death I can think of [...]

I'm sorry to hear that. Losing a character that you've invested a lot of time in is rough under any circumstance, let alone when the death feels arbitrary. But that is the nature of a game with permadeath and automated conflict resolution: Characters will often die unexpectedly.

History is littered with these sorts of underwhelming ends from famous musicians dying on the toilet to emperors choking on some food or falling ill in the middle of a great military campaign.

I do feel that in the end, permadeath provides more benefit than detriment to the game world though, and wouldn't want to see it go.

I thought of a solution, however. [...] we should be allowed to use karma/CGP to boost our attributes.

I don't understand how boosting attributes is a solution for the burnout that follows losing a long lived character. 
It seems non sequitur to me.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

It is frustrating to lose a long-lived to something arbitrary sometimes and we feel for you. But the only alternative is less appealing.

[RogueGunslinger]

Because long lived character don't have much to gain anymore. Attributes/skills and special little things  like unique tattoo's or story-based knick-nacks from the last RPT.

I know a lot of this is done to some extent, but I think he's saying more would help keep long-lived characters around without wanting to store, suicide, or just be reckless.

[nauta]

The staff side rule is that if you add a negative note to a players account you are meant to open up a request  to let them know, if appropriate give suggestions for improvement/change or further discuss and clarify the issue with them.

In general staff only send messages about notes added to accoun info, not player info.  The reason for this is that notes placed in pinto are generally just informational notes for that PC to aid with animations.  For example if they've visited a particular spot and got a certain reaction we will know to 'ramp up' the reaction next time.  Or maybe they pissed off an npc and we want to note it in case we go anywhere with it plot wise.  In other words we don't consider this field of notes to be the place where we are commenting on RP or the account t and it should not be the place for a negative note type,  just j to for staff on the PC.

Thanks!

[nauta]

The casuals and you:

I'm sympathetic to a lot of the ideas that seem to be motivated by what folks out there call the 'casuals' (that is, people who might not have a load of time to dedicate to the game, or a load of time in one sitting).  From what I can tell, a lot of the skill bump suggestions (in some form or other) are motivated by this concern.  Here's some other suggestions that might make life better for casuals:

Ranger Quit: Perhaps you could, with a certain amount of karma, get ranger quit (i.e., quit anywhere) for free, or maybe you can buy ranger quit with CGP, or maybe you can QUIT OOC an unlimited amount of times after reaching a certain karma threshold, or providing staff with some justification or something.

Meta-Movement Points: So there's a big RPT coming up, but you have a dozen things to do, and can only make it in the middle, or have to leave during the middle, or it takes an hour to get to the RPT, etc.  Again, perhaps players with a certain amount of karma, or maybe purchased with CGP, can have the ability to meta-poof from point A to point B, or teleport to a certain person.  (Details could be sorted to avoid abuse -- e.g., it could log it to staff or whatever whenever this happens, limited to once a month, requires a report to be filed, or something.)  We suspend our disbelief when people quit out during a scene; we can suspend our disbelief when they re-enter a scene too.

Add more Quit rooms around the Known.

Something about making apartments easier to maintain as a casual player.  Maybe expand Nenyuk's 'store item' option (not even sure how that works); or maybe you can file off an 'absent request' to staff or something to have your items stored in a special space.

Some form of off-line communication.  A messenger bot has been suggested before.  You'd have to rig this so that it doesn't get abused, e.g., limit messages to once a week or something, or three messages a week.

[ibusoe]

The solution therefore is that we should be allowed to use karma/CGP to boost our attributes. One possible mechanism is allowing us to select a few attributes to boost soon after character creation; let us get the attributes to where we think they need to be and we'll be more willing to take the plunge of hundreds of hours of gaming time to build a character and flesh out their story. Another possibility would be to allow attribute boosting requests once again for more long-lived PCs; give us that hope that even if the initial roll wasn't so good that we can eventually improve it up to a reasonable limit.

I think plenty of you overlooked what I took to be Harmless central point.

Might I ask why it is some feel that having random stats contributes to players ability to create living, breathing characters rather than detracts from it?

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

What about giving a very few of the right kind of long-lived pcs who ask for them their own npc slaves/servants/guards? They could store them in their apartment or have them guard their warehouses, and require staff approval from their clan or the right clan to have them. Something for a percentage of the long-liveds to strive for, an extra bit of power that still means nothing in the face of a Templar.

[Qzzrbl]

I think plenty of you overlooked what I took to be Harmless central point.

Might I ask why it is some feel that having random stats contributes to players ability to create living, breathing characters rather than detracts from it?

::Edit:: Holy balls I misread your post hard. Disregard me.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

And give those same few (and maybe a couple of others who do the right things) limited access to those Tuluki wines that are now unavailable? A perk of power.

[Norcal]

Lots of really valid stuff.

I agree with this post.  Stats are supposed to be a measure of realism and randomness, as far as I can tell at least.

However, your main guild is decided before you get a stat roll.  Realistically, someone with stats that make them suck at combat would not really have become a warrior. Yet there you are, stuck with a bad roll.  You can reroll, and maybe it will be better, maybe not.

And what if that warrior with terrible stats is also one of your precious special apps, and a concept that you have spent hours or days working up, with a name and a description you cannot use again?  This is really not nice. Not fun at all.  

Now you want to be a good Arm player, so you tough it out, like Harmless says.  You invest. You play realistically and then your PC dies, and you have not reached even one goal.  That is also not very nice. Stats do increase and decrease with age.  Yet the increases may not always be enough.

Then repeat this process as Harmless mentioned, many times, never reaching even one goal.  That is the reason for burnout Jave.  And allowing for stat increases would alleviate some (not all) of the problem. I do not see anyone advocating for a removal or permadeath.

The idea of this thread is for players to express the ways they feel player retention could be improved.  Harmless has suggested allowing players to improve stats, or by somehow changing the stat system to make it more favorable.  I think she is right, and there are lots of ways to do this and still keep the same style, feel and uniqueness to Arm.

[nauta]

The solution therefore is that we should be allowed to use karma/CGP to boost our attributes. One possible mechanism is allowing us to select a few attributes to boost soon after character creation; let us get the attributes to where we think they need to be and we'll be more willing to take the plunge of hundreds of hours of gaming time to build a character and flesh out their story. Another possibility would be to allow attribute boosting requests once again for more long-lived PCs; give us that hope that even if the initial roll wasn't so good that we can eventually improve it up to a reasonable limit.

+1 on this idea and any idea that gives us more control over the character creation process.  That said, isn't this possible already? -- I noticed there's a "Stat Change" pulldown on the Request Tool...  Maybe we should have to use CGP/karma to do it, but I'd like to think a reasonable explanation to staff would be granted-- hey guys, totally envisioned this guy as a wimpy guy with great hand-eye coordination, or as a clumsy meat-head, but the rolls didn't come out right!  check out my background.  TIA.  

Maybe you have something else in mind, or maybe you think the current system is clunky?

ETA: Checked out the pulldown for "Stat Change', this is what it says:

"Use this to request a stat change for your character. Due to a recent policy change this is only to address playability issues. Do not submit logs of you working out to gain more strength."

Perhaps the language could change to be more receptive and inclusive: "Use this feature if the attributes you got out of chargen don't reflect what you had visualized your character being.  Reasonable requests will be considered."

[Eurynomos]

As promised, we've developed a formal system for Staff giving kudos (Positive Reinforcement) to players. So it isn't nebulous anymore.