Focus Thread - Player Retention and Noob Friendliness: Building an Enduring Community

As the title says, the focus of this thread is player retention and noob friendliness. This might be difficult to really focus in on, because in actuality it relates to just about everything in the gameplan thread. The reason for most of the ideas in the gameplan itself is to promote these two things. I'll go over some of the issues the current wildwest has with these two traits and then show how the relevant ideas in the gameplan attempt to fix these problems. I'll also be adding in some new ideas at the end of the thread.

Here are some of the reasons that the current wildwest has issues with noob friendliness and player retention.

• No new players are joining: Needs more advertising

• Huge teams: New players that do join are dominated by enormous, unstoppable teams

• Boredom: Wildwest is very grindy. There aren't enough fights. It also takes forever to ride to places.

• Frustration: Dying is too punishing for new players. Constantly getting sheriff-ed or gangbanged sucks.

• Crappy tutorial: Not the best first impression. Not fun. Not mandatory.

Here is how the current gameplan ideas relate to player retention and noob friendliness.


Gameplan ideas:

• Ranks and Unlocks: A level up system. Gives players a reason to keep playing. Possibly implement the ability to switch guilds freely at highest rank. - Retention

• Guilds and Guild Bases: Pros must team with noobs in guild bases instead of just kill them. - Noob Friendliness

• Bounty Cap: Less jail time = less frustration upon death. - Retention

• Team Cap and Team Bases: One team to rule them all = less fights and processing bored for hours. A cap + bases that only one team can process at at a time = more fights, competition, and fun - Retention

Randie's New Ideas:

• Less punishing deaths while processing: Processing automatically sells and adds 1/4 of what you process to your bank. Noobs don't use horses to store drugs, so at least this way they don't lose too badly if they die after processing for some time. - Noob Friendliness

• Faster Travel: Less boredom via riding for a few minutes just to get somewhere. Also means quicker arrivals at war zones. Wagon Driver NPC? (Gets a player up to 3/4 of the distance to a location for a price. Can call horse instantly after arrival.) - Retention

• Lower Harvesting Times: Less boredom. Less time spent at a place you won't typically fight at. - Retention

• Some sort of challenge/tournament system: Kinda like KitBrawl's, except it's held at an actual location instead of just being a GUI and commands. New town maybe? Entrants can bet money, gear, etc and then 1v1, 2v2, etc for it. -Retention

• Reputation gained by killing based on level difference: If you kill a player who is 1 level higher than you, then you get 1.5x rep. 2 levels higher and it’s 2x. Same goes for killing low leveled players. 1 level lower, and you get .93x rep. 2 levels lower, and you get .86x rep. This would encourage going after high leveled players and discourage killing noobs. Also makes farming alts for reputation a lot less viable. - Noob Friendliness

• Death penalty is also staggered with levels: Low levels hardly lose any. High levels lose more. Shouldn't be too severe, even at the highest levels. Should be able to be fully regained by about 2-5 minutes of processing at the max.

• Guild Protection: Players lose 1/2 the death penalty of reputation if a player in their guild dies within 100 blocks of them unless they are in a safezone or team base. Encourages the protection of new players. Discourages abusing potential ways to bypass the system and kill them. - Noob Friendliness

• Team Reputation: Encourages attacking instead of trucing with other teams at team bases. Will have levels and perks for high reputation. Will gain reputation similar to normal reputation. - Noob Friendliness/Retention

• Advertise the server better: Get new players to join, voting incentives, youtuber, guides, youtube ads? -Noob Friendliness

• Limited time events: Bandits v. Sheriffs, Competitions, Gold Rush, Better x for a week, etc. - Retention

• Spawn has to be breathtaking - First impressions m8. - Retention

• Mandatory interactive tutorial with progress bar. - Must be fun. Like a minigame! Must quickly cover the very basics and then gives the player the option to interact with different, more complex parts of the game. - Noob Friendliness/Retention

Please comment on any of the ideas above, but more than that, what would you do to help with player retention and noob friendliness? This is a legitimate subject that you can research online and see what successful game designers have to keep in mind when creating games, so feel free to do your own research and present your findings here.

 

Yeah, we really need to find ways to help boost the first impression. Shoutout to @PatrykSzczescie for bringing up music. If we can get deep immersion the second they join, we'll be a lot better off. I'll definitely look into the possibility of getting music for the resourcepack or coded into the server itself.

I didn't think of stopping the reputation gain. I've planned that processing speed would be lowered or something, but I'll definitely stop reputation gain as well. That might even be a better idea than a lowered processing speed if we end up doing one or the other.

I think the player's loot and the reputation gain will be sufficient. The reason I don't want a "one size reward fits all" system is because it encourages alt and noob farming. This would take care of alts, but I think that it would also encourage pros to kos everyone, including noobs in their own guild via different guild alts.

@tr1kim @Jinzo @PatrykSzczescie @BlackKnight_7 @Turmac How does everybody feel about this? The reputation system would lower the reputation gain from killing lower level players. Would a reputation penalty for killing rank 1 or 2 players be welcome?

Excellent idea! This is why I post these threads! <3

I'm pretty sure the frustration here didn't come from the fights, but from the fact that people weren't able to profit enough without dying or being interrupted. If you get the money for 1 out of every 4 drugs and get the loot of the people coming back, I don't think it will be disliked. Remember, people probably won't come back 9,000 times because they won't have free gear and they lose reputation upon death. Also, there's nothing stopping you from coming back in the vengeful player is finally successful. My reasoning was players fight at bases for the most part, and if I could get them spending less time elsewhere and be able to get around quicker, there would be more fights. I'm curious though. Do you have a different idea to make fights more frequent? I'm definitely open to suggestions.

This + possibly getting more than 1 drug per plant by default.

I thought of doing something like you described, but then I realized how badly alts could be abused to benefit from this. It also wouldn't prevent someone from logging on an alt in a different guild and killing any noobs that go in the base. If higher level players aren't doing a good job of protecting their lower leveled guild mates, they could always try to process at the more competitive team bases where guilds don't matter. I understand that my system is by no means ideal, but it's the best that I've heard up to this point. Again, I'm open to suggestions. If you can come up with a different system that both prevents alt abuse and discourages killing noobs, then please tell me.

Though not in the gameplan thread, I believe that I was already planning on something like this. I would personally want every new player to walk around with at least a LeMat.

Was this coded into the server or part of a resource pack? In any case, it's a huge +1 from me.

I'm not sure about Indians not being able to mine, but I'll consider this. Maybe only some mines would be safezones? I'm not sure. Dying at mines and having little options to safely make some cash sounds like it would be frustrating for new players.

I think a Wagon Driver NPC would be a better option here. Giving players something to work for helps with retention and if there's a way to sell the donor horses again in a EULA compliant way, I want to find it.