A Discussion on How to Improve Player Retention and Player/Staff Relations

[NerdyFingers]

So, I want to start this discussion by saying that I think the current staff has done a lot to improve Armageddon Mud. These efforts have been made both in terms of improving staff relations with players and in improving the codebase. And the effort that I'm seeing being made on these fronts is much greater than what it was five years ago. But player retention is still pretty poor and more can always be done.

I have been playing Armageddon Mud on and off for almost 14 years. And have created this account for the purpose of writing this post. Hopefully this will help facilitate a productive discussion on what should and should not be done to improve both player retention and how players and staff treat each other.

This post was inspired by this thread. It seemed like for the most part both the players and staff were willing to candidly discuss problems with player retention and staff relations. But it looked like more could have been done in terms of discussing possible solutions. Instead of just airing out complaints. 

Ways that we can improve player retention and player/staff relations:

1. Player/staff meetings. This was an excellent idea on Sanvean's part. And seeing the staff actively seek feedback from the players would go a long way towards helping players see that the staff care about both the game and the players.

2. Stop force storing accounts due to inactivity. Players put a lot of time into this game. Personally, I will typically put 20-40 hours into a graphical game. And that's if I like the game. In Armageddon MUD, 40 hours means you might be starting to have the basics down. But are nowhere close to fully fleshing out your character. And that's for one character. So when I had a character force stored after 3 weeks of not playing, I was upset. It was a clanned character that was not in a leadership position. I had very busy schedule at the time with work and school and simply needed the ability to play my character sporadically in order to continue to play. My request to have the character unstored was denied because I was honest when I was asked how often I would be able to play. And because my character was stored, I stopped playing for a couple of years. Force storages are the type of thing that is killing player retention. If a player isn't in a leadership position, and isn't hurting the roleplay of other characters by doing things like: OOC communication, not asking for consent, or abusing the code. Then you probably shouldn't toss away all of the time they have put into a character with a force storage. If they actively roleplay their character's personality and play their character in a realistic way, then even better, give them karma.

3. Make these forums feel like a safe place to air grievances. This is the surest way to kill the shadowboard. Simply creating a section on the forum where players can post concerns or disputes without feeling like they will be punished for it would deincentivize many (although admittedly not all) shadowboarders.

4. Try to guide players instead of pushing players. A friendly in-character nudge that what a character is saying or wearing is odd is great. And helps the player understand the world that their character is living in. A blunt email explaining why the player was punished for not playing correctly might get the behavior changed quicker. But you are also a lot more likely to lose the player or have a player who feels like the staff don't care about their feelings.

[Synthesis]

Meh.  I don't think any of those suggestions hit the mark.

The problems, as I see it:

1.  It takes too much time to play this game for people who aren't already invested in it.

2.  It takes WAY too much time to get any good at combat.

3.  It's far too difficult to be any sort of antagonist PC without some sort of uberness built in (e.g. psion, sorc, elementalist, mul, HG, AHMAHZING stats, extensive code/game knowledge gathered from past experience, etc.).

4.  The game rules make it very difficult to maintain word-of-mouth interest.

[Dar]

Synthesis is pretty accurate. These matters are the biggest obstacles of player retention. Although solving some of those problems may change the gameworld to such an extent that solutions themselves may be the cause of a new problem. There are no obvious answers.

The solutions that Nerdyfingers mentioned would help with the retention of 'certain' players. Unfortunately, due to the previous thread, I now count myself as one of those players . Whether those certain players deserve extra effort to try and keep, is left up to staff decision.

[Malken]

Player/Staff meeting isn't going to do shit as long as Staff is not willing to share with us their "long-term" goals for Armageddon. Anything else would be just like a "live" Ask the Staff thread.

I don't think the shadowboard™ is much of a problem anymore, it's mostly being used by a couple of mentally unstable individuals using it as their ranting box against society and paid for by Jcarter. It offers a nice alternative poop read when reddit doesn't deliver.

[Lizzie]

I didn't know they needed to have long term goals for Armageddon. I'm satisfied if their only long-term goal is to continue providing the game to the public.

[Synthesis]

My solution proposals:

1.  Code a minimum offline RL time-based skillgain.  Implement it so that the skillgain continues for the skills you actually used during your last RL month of logins, and cap the skillgain achievable via this method at 40% of guild max.  If you do nothing but log in once a month and use a bunch of skills a single time, after about 6 months, you could be at what...beginning jman in all of them.  If, in the last RL month, you haven't even -used- a particular skill, you no longer receive passive skillgain in that skill.

2.  Code a mobile-device app that allows for psionic communication without actually logging into the game.  Allow players to decide whether or not to be available for the app.  If you're logged in to the game, and your target contact is logged out, but available via the app, you can send the psi and it will be sent to the target PC's player's mobile device, and they can respond.  Such communication would be subject to all forms of magick or psionic snooping, spoofing, blocking, or other miscellaneous shenanigans.

3.  Code a psionic inbox so that when you log in, you can check the list of messages that your PC would've received.  Again, subject to snooping, spoofing, blocking, or shenanigans.

4.  Increase the rate of combat and weapon skillgain.

5.  Radically re-code the Labyrinth.  Change the room correspondence from 1:1 width of Allanak to like a width of 10:1, with a 3-layer aboveground Y axis.  Put so many quit rooms, hidey-holes, hidden places, and wandering NPCs in it that it would be entirely possible to be a relatively anonymous low-level criminal.  Implement a reasonable economic system for the area (i.e. one that doesn't revolve around looting dead NPCs.) Code some scrub-level gangs that are joinable from either chargen, or with minimal effort.

6.  Enable either mobile-app or offline payments...so if you hire someone to do something, and they do it, you can pay them for the work even if you otherwise rarely run into each other in game.  Maybe this could be limited to folks with active Nenyuk accounts or whatever.

[Kalden]

#5, turning the Labyrinth into a bigger place, sounds intriguing.

The reality is that it wouldn't kill the game to have fun activities for people who don't really want to just hang around in taverns or greb for salt. Exploring the wilderness is fun and engages those people pretty well right now. The Labyrinth could be more like a wilderness which would be interesting.

[Malifaxis]

The responses to this thread make me very sad.

Combat in no way needs to be more powerful.  No one needs the necksnap skill.

Retention is improved by creating more engagement and interest, not by creating more bodies.

Area expansion (rinth and silt), allowance of lateral changes (pc noble -> pc templar), and increased pc social dynamics (coded enforcement of social clout/semi immunity/susceptibility from crim code) could do a great amount.

[NerdyFingers]

My solution proposals:

1.  Code a minimum offline RL time-based skillgain.  Implement it so that the skillgain continues for the skills you actually used during your last RL month of logins, and cap the skillgain achievable via this method at 40% of guild max.  If you do nothing but log in once a month and use a bunch of skills a single time, after about 6 months, you could be at what...beginning jman in all of them.  If, in the last RL month, you haven't even -used- a particular skill, you no longer receive passive skillgain in that skill.

2.  Code a mobile-device app that allows for psionic communication without actually logging into the game.  Allow players to decide whether or not to be available for the app.  If you're logged in to the game, and your target contact is logged out, but available via the app, you can send the psi and it will be sent to the target PC's player's mobile device, and they can respond.  Such communication would be subject to all forms of magick or psionic snooping, spoofing, blocking, or other miscellaneous shenanigans.

3.  Code a psionic inbox so that when you log in, you can check the list of messages that your PC would've received.  Again, subject to snooping, spoofing, blocking, or shenanigans.

4.  Increase the rate of combat and weapon skillgain.

5.  Radically re-code the Labyrinth.  Change the room correspondence from 1:1 width of Allanak to like a width of 10:1, with a 3-layer aboveground Y axis.  Put so many quit rooms, hidey-holes, hidden places, and wandering NPCs in it that it would be entirely possible to be a relatively anonymous low-level criminal.  Implement a reasonable economic system for the area (i.e. one that doesn't revolve around looting dead NPCs.) Code some scrub-level gangs that are joinable from either chargen, or with minimal effort.

6.  Enable either mobile-app or offline payments...so if you hire someone to do something, and they do it, you can pay them for the work even if you otherwise rarely run into each other in game.  Maybe this could be limited to folks with active Nenyuk accounts or whatever.

I like the idea of increasing how quickly skills are gained. Another way this could be done is by raising the starting level of skills and lowering the max level of skills. It just takes very long time to get good at things. Especially if you are playing your character in a realistic way. I also really like #6. A way to pay someone even if they are offline would also be huge for all sorts of characters (assassins, merchants, etc).

Trying to increase engagement would also help. One thing that I've always wanted to see is more competition between factions. This could be done by setting objectives (controlling an area, financial goals, people to kill, crafting goals) and then codedly rewarding factions that complete these objectives in some small way (small bump in salary, maybe being put in charge of an area or room that gives some small coded benefit, more npcs, etc).

[Synthesis]

Nobody said anything about making combat "more powerful," or adding a necksnap skill.

Casually dismissing the concerns of achiever gamer types as preposterous is hardly "creating more engagement and interest," by the way.

[Armaddict]

See this going down the same path as many other threads that were aligned towards this topic.

As stated in those threads, as far as combat, I don't think anything needs to be improving more quickly; I think branching could happen earlier, but 'viability' is already reached relatively quickly by those looking to 'achieve' viability.  The 'achievement' of having it tell you 'master' is a flawed premise when gauged against what is possible within the game and what's required to achieve them.

[Melkor]

I 100% agree with making the 'rinth bigger. like... waaaay bigger. A week or two playing in the Rinth and you can walk the alleys by memory. Not much of a maze, imo.

Leave the skills alone. Absolutely no offline skillgain. I would even advocate making combat skills harder to level, or at least making them require maintenance, so if you do not use a leveled skill every so often, you get rusty, and lose some talent.

I agree that it is difficult to play an Antagonist without staff support, as rubbing against the grain usually leads to being stuffed out ASAP, but I think this has to do with the game being largely player v environment, making antagonistic characters particularly annoying. I think the staff should help average players have the resources to be baddies, even if they are players who will take the opportunity given to them and fail miserably.

[Synthesis]

*sigh*

I'm just trying to help y'all out.  I'm at 26 days, branched my first set of advanced weapon skills, and on the cusp of a second branch, so I mean...I'm not suggesting it for my own sake.

But...whatever, man.  If y'all wanna keep sucking, I guess that's on you.

[Armaddict]

How is your long-lasting gripe about what it takes to branch weapon skills not addressed by just making it branch earlier?

[Jihelu]

Remind me why I can't take a subguild that lets me know how to use a bloody polearm.

Also, inb4 thread is locked like the last time.

Outside of me complaining about some things I don't have problems with staff. I have problems with what I see them do, but none of it has involved me.

[Synthesis]

How is your long-lasting gripe about what it takes to branch weapon skills not addressed by just making it branch earlier?

I can't really answer that question without getting into a code discussion red zone.  That would be partially helpful, I guess...but it wouldn't make an appreciable difference in the overall grind.  The difficult spot has always been the near-maxed plateau where you can plow through a half-dozen of some of the most badass critters in the game and not get a single failure.

[Hauwke]

Weapons skills are gnarly once you hit late jman low advanced. All those ridiculous long lived pc's that wreck face would be all but unstoppable if you made it easier for them to skill up.

Plus I dont want to be seeing master weapons skills on my sheet for a long time of playing. It should require several IG years of practice to git gud.

[ghanima]

Yeah I don't know about increasing weapon skill gains either. There should be something that is seen as a long term goal, something that you can only attain by being alive a really long time. Otherwise people will feel that they've reached their limitations in a relatively short period of time, get bored, become reckless, then die stupidly or store. For me the long term goal is reaching master level in a weapons skill. It's important to remember that people will always ask for something. The trouble with granting wishes is that many times people don't want what they ask for once they have it. Do we really need to decrease the time it takes to improve in combat? I'm not yet convinced.

I think the player base has suddenly jumped up out of the blue and I'm going to venture a guess it has to do with the gladiator stuff on offer. Which I think is great! On the topic of our ever diminishing player base I do want to point out that while the average high during peak hours (until very recently) has been rather low, off peak hours are higher than they've ever been in the history of the MUD. There's still that time of day when the player list is 0 or 1 but that used to encompass a much larger time frame. Now when I expect to see only 5 players online I've actually seen 20+! Arm used to be very Americentric back in the day but now we've got players from all over the globe. So when it comes to retention, do just bear in mind that if you don't see higher numbers during peak hours that isn't enough evidence to say the population hasn't increased.

I love this discussion overall though and hope it continues. For me the best way to improve player retention is not with coded add ons but with game wide story arcs. Something that pulls the players in and makes them want to get in on the action. I'd rather a game with a faulty code but amazing storytelling taking place than amazing code with little or no real stories to tell.

[John]

I can't really answer that question without getting into a code discussion red zone.  That would be partially helpful, I guess...but it wouldn't make an appreciable difference in the overall grind.  The difficult spot has always been the near-maxed plateau where you can plow through a half-dozen of some of the most badass critters in the game and not get a single failure.

The only way this sounds like "viable" is if you define "viable" as being "close to fully maxxed out."

Some people really need to redefine how they view their characters if they think grinding to this level is required to be a playable character.

[Synthesis]

I can't really answer that question without getting into a code discussion red zone.  That would be partially helpful, I guess...but it wouldn't make an appreciable difference in the overall grind.  The difficult spot has always been the near-maxed plateau where you can plow through a half-dozen of some of the most badass critters in the game and not get a single failure.

The only way this sounds like "viable" is if you define "viable" as being "close to fully maxxed out."

Some people really need to redefine how they view their characters if they think grinding to this level is required to be a playable character.

I never said viable.  I never said playable.  Why put words in my mouth?

Let's just drop the stupid combat suggestion then, since apparently people can't approach that discussion in even a minimally reasonable manner.

[Lizzie]

Synthesis, here are 3 lines from 3 different posts you posted in this thread:

3.  It's far too difficult to be any sort of antagonist PC without some sort of uberness built in (e.g. psion, sorc, elementalist, mul, HG, AHMAHZING stats, extensive code/game knowledge gathered from past experience, etc.).
----------------
Casually dismissing the concerns of achiever gamer types as preposterous is hardly "creating more engagement and interest," by the way.
----------------
But...whatever, man.  If y'all wanna keep sucking, I guess that's on you.

Re the first: You don't need to have ANY "uberness" built in to be any sort of antagonist. You need to have at least some prior experience playing Armageddon, and at least some moderate understanding of the politics of the game world and of whichever area your character is living in. You can even show up knowing very little, and stay alive long enough to learn your way up the ladder. There have been extremely long-lived characters who didn't use most of their main guild skills at all, let alone maxed them out or gotten "uber" with them.

Re the second: Achiever types already have concerns addressed. They want to progress through the code. There's nothing stopping them. Eventually, as long as they play the RP end of things conservatively, they will max out. If they RP a yahoo cowboy who rides out into unknown territory all by himself and decides to take on a 6-pack of kryl, then no - he isn't likely to succeed. If he shows up out of chargen as a dwarf with a focus to kill the first noble he sees, then - he'll probably be disappointed.

Re the third: there's your problem right there. You are convinced that if people don't play the way you want to play, then their play style sucks. You are wrong.

[whitt]

The difficult spot has always been the near-maxed plateau where you can plow through a half-dozen of some of the most badass critters in the game and not get a single failure.

I think this is precisely why your argument falls on deaf ears.  If you can rofl stomp a half-dozen of some of the most badass critters in the game and not get a single failure?  How much better do you really need to be to ring the bell for whichever sense of achievement you're aiming for?  Is it as simple as seeing Master in your skill list? 

If so then I would be tempted to agree with you.  Enough successes without a failure should equate to the same opportunity for skill advancement as one or two failures during that same amount of skill usage.  I'm not a fan of the "must fail to learn" skill system either, it results in janky play.  I  think your attention only to combat skills makes mining this proposed change out of your complaint difficult.  It also leads me to believe that maybe this isn't your complaint at all, but then, I'm not sure what it is you do want.

[Riev]

The difficult spot has always been the near-maxed plateau where you can plow through a half-dozen of some of the most badass critters in the game and not get a single failure.

I think this is precisely why your argument falls on deaf ears.  If you can rofl stomp a half-dozen of some of the most badass critters in the game and not get a single failure?  How much better do you really need to be to ring the bell for whichever sense of achievement you're aiming for?  Is it as simple as seeing Master in your skill list? 

If I may: Because like nuclear armament, there will always be a Synth-like player out there who knows more than you, or an X-D Dwarf that has been around so long that you codedly can't even hit him, or even the fact that no matter how good you get, staff can animate an NPC that bitchslaps you like a boss.

I have a lot of feelings on this, that many people disagree with. However, I'll throw my hat in to say that keeping not just newbies, but veterans, playing is to honestly have MORE back and forth with staff. It seems what makes many veterans leave (including me) is the idea that it takes a week for staff to respond to a report, but in 2 days I could be dead to some altercation that happened the day before. Its not a fault of staff, per se, but the system itself. Staff are there to "make the world come alive" and "help out with personal plots" but they are so stretched thin with bureaucracy that even Leadership roles don't always get the attention they need (not complaining about anyone specific, my last staffer was a fucking great staffer).

I have a theory that players are, by majority, half-elves. They want to be accepted and part of the 'in' crowd, but are volatile and will fly off the handle when you suggest something may not be the way they imagined it. Those that don't, honestly, we don't have to worry about retention. If they're happy being on the outside, solo RPing and telling a mostly one-character story, so be it. I know personally I want to be part of the shared story, and just have my part that mattered one way or the other, but the staff time it would take for me to have felt useful takes away from the overall story's richness. I don't have a solution, but I want to better frame a problem.

[Synthesis]

Synthesis, here are 3 lines from 3 different posts you posted in this thread:

3.  It's far too difficult to be any sort of antagonist PC without some sort of uberness built in (e.g. psion, sorc, elementalist, mul, HG, AHMAHZING stats, extensive code/game knowledge gathered from past experience, etc.).
----------------
Casually dismissing the concerns of achiever gamer types as preposterous is hardly "creating more engagement and interest," by the way.
----------------
But...whatever, man.  If y'all wanna keep sucking, I guess that's on you.

Re the first: You don't need to have ANY "uberness" built in to be any sort of antagonist. You need to have at least some prior experience playing Armageddon, and at least some moderate understanding of the politics of the game world and of whichever area your character is living in. You can even show up knowing very little, and stay alive long enough to learn your way up the ladder. There have been extremely long-lived characters who didn't use most of their main guild skills at all, let alone maxed them out or gotten "uber" with them.

Re the second: Achiever types already have concerns addressed. They want to progress through the code. There's nothing stopping them. Eventually, as long as they play the RP end of things conservatively, they will max out. If they RP a yahoo cowboy who rides out into unknown territory all by himself and decides to take on a 6-pack of kryl, then no - he isn't likely to succeed. If he shows up out of chargen as a dwarf with a focus to kill the first noble he sees, then - he'll probably be disappointed.

Re the third: there's your problem right there. You are convinced that if people don't play the way you want to play, then their play style sucks. You are wrong.

I never said it was impossible to be an antagonist without built-in uberness.  I said it's TOO DIFFICULT, and that discourages people from trying it.  Then they get bored with playing milquetoast PCs, and they go play a different game.

My suggestion to improve skillgain is NOT INTENDED TO BE BENEFICIAL to pure achiever types.  Pure achiever types will be perfectly happy grinding away with incremental gains, because that is their bread and butter.  Improving skillgain is intended to keep around the folks who want to RP a badass warrior but who don't want to put in the grind required to do it, which is UTTERLY SOUL-CRUSHING if you don't enjoy grinding away in solo PvE.  So they play non-combatants.  Then they get bored with non-combatants.  Then they quit playing.

I never said anyone's "play style" sucks.  I didn't even imply that.  "Keep on sucking" simply means "your PC sucks at fighting."

The difficult spot has always been the near-maxed plateau where you can plow through a half-dozen of some of the most badass critters in the game and not get a single failure.

I think this is precisely why your argument falls on deaf ears.  If you can rofl stomp a half-dozen of some of the most badass critters in the game and not get a single failure?  How much better do you really need to be to ring the bell for whichever sense of achievement you're aiming for?  Is it as simple as seeing Master in your skill list? 

If so then I would be tempted to agree with you.  Enough successes without a failure should equate to the same opportunity for skill advancement as one or two failures during that same amount of skill usage.  I'm not a fan of the "must fail to learn" skill system either, it results in janky play.  I  think your attention only to combat skills makes mining this proposed change out of your complaint difficult.  It also leads me to believe that maybe this isn't your complaint at all, but then, I'm not sure what it is you do want.

I don't want to implement code changes in order to be better than anyone at fighting, because I ALREADY AM.  I know exactly what to do and how to do it.  I want OTHER PEOPLE to be able to get awesome, too...because being awesome undeniably provides an incentive to keep on playing the damn game.

I don't understand why you people seem to think I have my own interests in mind.  None of this has a damn thing to do with what -I- personally need.  I don't need offline skillgain, because I can max out any skill other than combat skills in like 4-5 days played, without even trying too hard.  I don't need "offline" psionics because I usually play solo or loner-type PCs.  I don't need a more interesting, realistic Labyrinth, because I know the ins and outs of the current map, and I know how to make it work.  I don't need offline payments, because I know how to extract maximum value from simple PvE exchanges.  I don't need increased combat skillgain, because I enjoy the grind, and I'm pretty fucking good at it.

I'm offering these suggestions because I -know-, after nearly 20 damn years of playing this game, that these are the things other people cry about over, and over, and over, and over again:  it's too hard to coordinate; it's too hard to be a bad guy; being in a clan is the best way to get good RP, but the worst way to skill up; edited to add:  need more support for casual players.

But, you know...fine.  FIIIIIINE.  I'll just keep enjoying myself, by myself, and when the playerbase drops to 5 online at peak, it won't fucking MATTER to me, because I'm used to it.  I'm trying to help the rest of you dinguses, but you can't get over this paranoid delusion that I'm trying to get EVEN MOAR UBER so I can come and apartment gank you or some shit.  It's ridiculous.  The last time I PK'ed someone, it was in defense of a third person, well over a year ago.  I can't even remember the last time before that.  I'M NOT THE BOOGEYMAN.  I'M NOT OUT TO GET YOU.

[whitt]

I don't understand why you people seem to think I have my own interests in mind.  None of this has a damn thing to do with what -I- personally need. 

I don't think that at all.  I'm just trying to understand your proposal.  So let me re-word the question you quoted slightly.

I think this is precisely why your argument falls on deaf ears.  If you a ranger/warrior can rofl stomp a half-dozen of some of the most badass critters in the game and not get a single failure?  How much better would you that character really need to be to ring the bell for whichever sense of achievement you're the players you're advocating for are aiming for?  Is it as simple as seeing Master in your their skill list?