New players retention

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by Morgathys, May 2, 2020.

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  1. Morgathys

    Morgathys Avatar

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    With what's going on in the world, I think this quarantine is a good opportunity for SotA to increase its player base. Personally, I don't tolerate being told what to do, what to tell and what to feel but I think that some things can be fixed to have a better player retention..

    When you start the game, you have no knowledge, no contacts and no idea what to do except the quests. I would like to recommend to put some love on 2 things that may help new players:

    - Quest system
    - maps

    I believe without those, players without emotional attachment (big pledgers, UO fans, Lord British lovers, etc) will not stand for long. There's some quest very confusing by nature and having no maps increase this challenge.

    make sense?
     
  2. Jackrabbit

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    I could not agree more. You will never retain new players in a significant way until those 2 items are fixed. My question is, why are we working on new stuff when the game's core basic features that everyone expects in a game are not finished?
     
  3. majoria70

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    I too agree. I really believe we need to have a journal and map system that is interesting, fun, and inspiring.

    These absolutely should let the players know right away lots of things to do in this game. Such as housing, dungeon making, a music system, quests and dailies tasks and achievements to earn cool items.

    We need something that alerts visually and with a chime or something that we have made progress. That is so missing and if it's there it is lost in our chat windows which is totally ridiculous.

    We should feel like we have achieved and progressed like now you can craft a beautiful something or now you have opened up a skill or earned a title with a buff.

    Turn the Obsidian trials into a nice little battleground timed event with capture opportunities, raid groups, and quests setting maybe that scales and give us pvp quests and incentives to earn and we would have a game.

    I agree for now address things that keep getting passed over and get our head out of combat for heavens sake.

    This is important and urgent. Combat can definitely wait imo. We have begged, pleaded, and some maybe even cry for this game to get basics. One day we may not. So please listen finally.

    @Elgarion, @Chris , @Sannio
     
  4. Gorthyn

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    How many times have issues like this been raised and how many times (sadly) have they been ignored ?
     
  5. Duffrey Blake

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    I agree sooo much. After a longer break I decided to share more of my time for SotA again. Ok what to do besides decorating my PoT? Yes, doing fun and immersive quests. I know there are alot but I don't know how to get startet. No useful maps for orientation and no useful quest list avaiable ingame or on the offical site. It was way better with Jakub whites maps ingame a long time ago. Please fix this with high priority. Thanks. @Chris
     
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  6. Beaumaris

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    Good opening post. I feel the same even after finishing the first act's quest lines. Sometimes I do wonder if I am just lazy after being spoiled by exclamation points over NPC heads in WOW? Its not like the quest system here doesnt function. I just find it inconducive to connecting to quick runs, gaining new direction/goals, or getting unlost when I want that.
     
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  7. craftymethod

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    1) Story line quests are indistinguishable from side quests, I suggested some colour coding that was apparently sent to Jira (when the dev deam was large) but nothing has come of it.
    2) Story line quests are not the easiest to follow if you get distracted by a side quest and its hard to know where you should be going, even with blue markers on map.
    3) Having an intro to the game that explains the set up to the story line quests would be helpful or perhaps a cut scene now and then to help bring some focus to the developments of the story...
     
  8. Steevodeevo

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    So much agree. The Devs have off and on talked about the legacy of the old 'broken' quest system (the plague of the broken blue sparkly's etc) and have actually stated that a new one was in development for episode 2.
    In the meantime, they said Sanio was fixing broken quests in the existing system; which he has been - but it must be an endless and thankless task to fix something so broken knowing it is to be scrapped - allegedly.

    So what is happening about the new quest system which was promoted as such a major feature of episode 2? As stated in the is thread - it isn't just a pleasing cosmetic add-on. I also agree it is key to player retention and from my view it is essential to bring out the world of very rich content that is already here but is hidden and nigh on invisible to most players, lost under the murk of the ambiguous, non intuitive mechanics of the current log, journal and interface..

    We have some decent daily quests, we have the main epic story line, we have side quests, puzzle quests, we have capture the flag, we have exploration, we have (some) crafting and gathering quests.. probably more categorises that I can't immediately bring to mind... Imagine if we had a Journal that had sections for each type. Imaging if this journal plotted progression, offered different coloured flags for each type. Imaging an overworld map that (at least) helped you ploit where they are or could be found(could be optional for those that would call this hand holding).

    With this (above), I think the game that SOTA essential is already would be illuminated as content rich and player friendly and this would go some, even most of the way, to player retention and growth,. What is not needed or helpful is this seemingly lost for ideas, iterative perpetual dwelling on marginal content, bards, Deco and Easter bunnies; aka cosmetic income. Cosmetic income and major income surely would come from subscriptions and add on purchases if the player base could be grown?.

    I have lost a bit of the joy with SOTA of late as it seems from what I see and read in patch notes, Dev stuff and on forums is totally unfocused and lacks a direction of travel. Certainly a direction that would interest me, friends who watch the game from afar and I see little insight into what is currently needing fixing so that the game can thrive.
     
  9. Xiones

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    Fix the quest system, give better rewards for the quest, and need more Daily & Weekely quest. Add Daily and Weekly quest for crafting with good XP rewards and raw materials.
     
  10. Julcar

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    I agree with fixing the quest system. I believe that should be placed on the top of the priority list even over fixing the maps.
     
  11. lordbane

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    As a relatively new player I find the lack of maps and the lack of guidance with some of the questlines a little frustrating. I missed one of the major questlines simply because it wasn't really pointed out as such and went off doing side quests for a while before doubling back. I probably caused myself a whole lot more frustration by doing this than I would have if I'd followed the main questline from the start.
     
  12. Paladin Michael

    Paladin Michael Bug Hunter

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    It's may 2020. I would like to hear Sannio telling, they're working on announced Journal overhaul.
    Sannio did a good work to wipe quest bugs.
    What we need now is a user friendly Journal with Chapters for each path, coloring main paths and side quests on the path, another Chapter for other daily/weekly/monthly quests.
    Would be perfect with adding needed received Quest items ...

    Well, it should garuantee, if a player left a year before and come back today, that he just have to open the Journal and knows: ah! That's what to do next on the main path - and ah! that's what I can do this day in this area ...

    Usability would raise fun immediately. That's the law ;)
     
  13. aragorn lancermane

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    This one thing I've been trying to point out. I could not agree more. Sadly tho, as it stands- this game will not keep new players until we have end game content.

    Before anyone tries to point it out, Control points are not end game. Scaled zones are not end game either. In all honesty, until there's lore implemented with a Raid Dungeon to match with a story to follow, all we will have is a game that is nothing much outside of a continual grind for exp... for what goal?

    Fixing the quest system is a definite start. But what after that?
     
  14. Steevodeevo

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    .. original post 2nd May, response from players: unanimous agreement. Response from Devs zero.

    From this one would reasonably deduce that this isn't going to happen, at least in the short to medium term. It's beyond comprehension that the Devs don't appreciate how important this is and how their players feel about it so it can only be down to resources: they don't have anywhere near enough to do the work. What is frustrating is that a new quest system is clearly listed in the vision documents.
     
  15. FrostII

    FrostII Bug Hunter

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    Chris doesn't read the forum.
     
  16. Feeyo

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    It is not only new player retention, but also old player retention... we (the old) players have been pointing towards a lot of options for Sota to work out. It is not being done for years.
     
  17. majoria70

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    Sometimes he does. He answered on a thread earlier. so we should not give up trying. This is in my opinion an important part of communication from many players who have been loyal to the game. ;)
     
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  18. Illiaro

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    I've kind of stopped playing. When I get on at night, there's almost nothing going on. When I signed on to the game, I read the stories about town sieges that really happened in towns. PVP that meant something. A full featured crafting system. What I ended up with is an endless XP grind. At the beginning we were told that level 80 was the right level to attain. Then 100, then 120, then 140,.... Essentially, it's not fun or interesting any more. Episode 2 was just a land grab with a couple scenes. No sea travel, no mounts, no air travel. How much is a gold manor house worth these days?
     
  19. Illiaro

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    I'm watching the live stream and it hit me. What is the vision for the world of this game? Chris is adding features, not building a world. The world as designed just doesn't make any sense.
     
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