What would be the best way to keep players retention?

[BurtHutt]

I will add, I am in NO rush to get to 50. I enjoy the ride. You level fairly quickly and don't get to most of the content. I am also placing IOs ASAP so I have a pretty good toon as I level.

 

I also think no advertising etc hurts player population. I am NOT asking to advertise or anything like that - just stating many probably don't know about this game and/or its return. 

[Greycat]

Well, to be fair we didn't exactly get a lot of advertising during live.

 

On the flip side, we didn't get a lot of advertising during live, and who knows what that did to the live population potential.

[Dragon Crush]

Honestly, I'm struggling to remember any MMO ads outside the occasional one I see on youtube these days and WoW used to advertise on TV.

But pretty sure I heard of Ultima, Everquest, and CoH all by word of mouth (or message board post).

 

And speaking of Everquest, could try adding endgame content every year while simultaneously releasing new servers that can't access the newest expansions...

Edited December 3, 2020 by Dragon Crush

[Troo]

6 hours ago, spartan52 said:

But why?

I think this may be worth digging into.

• On one hand, it does make sense that returning player should have access to the things they used to have without needing to regrind for it,
• On another hand, some new items perhaps could be gated by a minor accomplishment or task. Maybe work our way back to special items for harder accomplishments.
• P2W could also be used to toggle access to previously earned items. (could make a classic mode for those who do like to grind some things)
• It would be interesting to see some of the existing content chained together better.
• The dream was a choose your own path mode that had consequences for choices.

just spit ballin.

 

6 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

And for the elder gods' sakes.... give us boob physics.

noted

 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Troo

[thunderforce]

21 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I can share one opinion that's plaguing my brain... I kinda doubt the massively accelerated power creep is going to help matters in the long run.

I completely agree... but, even though I touch Suggestions and Feedback now and then to advocate toning down some particularly egregious examples, I'm aware that any kind of nerf is hugely unpopular, and the short term consequences of seriously addressing the balance issues might well make doing so a Pyrrhic victory at best.

 

To the OP: the best thing you can do as an individual player is to tell your friends about it, albeit stopping short of the point where they're bored to death with you mentioning it. I play more than one evening a week with people I know IRL who never touched the game on live.

[MsSmart]

I believe the devs in Homecoming are doing an outstanding job!

 

The game is free, so pragmatically speaking, I can't complain nor inclined to look at a gift horse in the mouth.

 

Yet politely suggesting how to make it better...

 

CoH has an advantage over all other games in the industry today, it is free and has a super loyal player base.

 

With the above in mind, CoH developers can have different game development attitudes, after all they do not have to make content that is focused in bringing the company more revenue.

 

In the old days, when quantity of players was money, there were many practices used to retain and acquire new players, a common method was the good ole "time sink" which gives the illusion to the player they are doing a lot, but really they spent it traveling by doing missions with the mandatory not in the same zone ever, with mission entry points at the farthest points of the map, and stupid repetitive missions that were identical with a slight change; for example take the very much despised Citadel TF, it is a Ping Pong TF that bounces you between Talos and IP, always at remote mission entry sites, and then the foolish kill all's often with the same identical map! with the only change being Kill all get 1 computer, followed by kill all get 2 computers, all the way to Kill all and get 4 computers.

 

To me a big retention booster, is get rid of the time-sinks, and watch people from other games get to know CoH is a no time-sink game, and watch our numbers grow.

 

To fix Citadel for example, Citadel is in Talos, right, so change all the missions but maybe 1 or 2 to be in Talos, stop the inter-zone travel.

 

With this in mind, go through the entire game and thoroughly limit how many zone changes a TF or mission requiries, say the maximum for a big TF is 3.

 

Location of mission entrances, why so much Sky, Talos and IP and at really remote locations often the farthest border? Limit mission entrances from base porters to not exceed 1 mile, when changing zones.

 

Change the time sink of kill and boss and guards, and the boss is placed in a room that is 80% of the map, and it turns out to be a near kill all, kill all is the time sink! Get rid of kill all's, or at least no more than 3 in long TFs! and please, make the story justify it.

 

A good example of a dumb kill all, is in synapse, right at the beginning, go to a warehouse and find the abnormality, as I enter I see a place infested with clockwork. Hate to tell you guys, but I found the abnormality duh! Why do I need to go in and kill all? Maybe change the building to a hospital and say, you got to get rid of all the clockwork in the building, people are dying!

 

Lastly it is a long look at arch type balance, the game has evolved...

 

During live days, the developers mindset was pretty much along the lines of D&D, you have the tank to soak the damage, to allow the rest to their job, you have the cleric to keep folks alive, the mage to blow away the opposition and the sneaky thief for all other needs. That has been the recipe that is mostly used in just about every MMO today.

 

What went wrong with this?

 

NCSOFT made the variations too broad, and too brutal. A Tank that is virtually indestructible with modest damage, and a blaster that is totally vulnerable but kicks like a mule. In time the game broke down into 2 classes the melee and support. The balance worked well in groups, but when it it got to the "solo" area, the very same balance was anathema because the melee - support divide was too brutal.  Take a tank with MAG 12 status effect protection, other melee had 8 and then the brutal contrast the support had "zero", this aberration worked ok in groups because it forced support to support the melee, they had no other choice. Because melee were so well made across the board it was particularly difficult to find challenge to be thrown at them specifically, and since support was totally vulnerable, challenge came at the sole expense of support. Look at a group fight at say mid levels, and watch who does the dying.  So challenge were brutal, we now see Status Effect attacks being without mercy spammed with many having snipe range, and of course the support classes have "0" mag protection! to the melee the status effect attacks are of little threat to them. There was resistances to Status Effects, but at a 90% cap, the best you could hope as to be in la la land for half the time; which became irrelevant for you were being chain stunned, held, etc. Till you were murdered.

 

Because the arch type balance is defective, it is nearly impossible to have increased challenge that is fair across all arch types evenly. 

 

During live, the devs began to feel the pressure of a defective infrastructure, and looked for band aids instead of fixing it. So we see the entry of the IO system, which allowed all the arch types to begin to balance their protections and abilities better, but notice the dogmatic abuse of status effects on support remained, also even in the IO world there was a remarkable bias in favor of melee; for the only true survival method for support was defense, avoid being struck. But note that defense versus range is almost always in the 6th IO combo; while the first 3 or 4 has all a melee would need as a whole.

 

The IOs being a partial success, was now supplemented by the incarnate system; which provided the means for support to close the protection gap in part Clarion finally gave support a means to be protected against the abusive use of status effects., but once again it favored melee who became even more powerful and devastating, because they did not have to buy incarnate powers to make up for protective abilities that had been freely given to them and thus increased their self reliability and damage.

 

With this done, challenge is "now" a major issue; and as usual it is the support staff that is getting the short end of the stick, for now lots of mobs have defense debuff, that does not even need to hit to do its dirty deed. So much for fair application of challenge. I do not see the same focus on mobs with resistance debuffs for example.

 

So the tough part in this last piece, how to achieve fair balance and increase challenge?

 

I would look at viewing a game were solo activity is the baseline, what all classes must have to be truly successful and as capable as each other.

 

The biggest discrepancy is status effect protection, Tanks get 12, really? hey need that much for soloing? other Melee gets 8 mag protection, once again they need that much for soloing? and the rest get zero, really? are you kidding me? Obviously the tank does need 12 and the scraper 8 when in a group, but why are we giving this classes the group protection values when soloing?

 

Of course, I am no fan or desire to return to the age where groups were forced to have a certain composition! That was terrible!

 

So what is needed is to upgrade the support classes with better protections, and in some cases DPS.

 

I would start by asking that all the support classes be given a MAG 4 protection ability, still inferior to the tank's 12, and scraper types 8, but sufficient to allow reasonable survival both solo and in groups. For all their weaknesses many of the support folks do not have the corresponding high dps. A controller for example if they try to area hold, they become an aggroe magnet, and lets face it they have an awful time locking a boss or better, and their DPS is laughable. A defender is even sadder they are the only arch type whose powers can't affect themselves, and then their dps is nurfed to be as bad as a tank, I fail to see the balance here, they have no protections, as the tank does and have the same DPS? really? Seems to me, the defenders should be able to affect themselves, maybe all those powers they have need to be PBAOEs, which support wise would be group wise much more valuable, and their dps should not be nurfed at all.

 

Incidentally when the arch types are capability leveled, you may find that PvP becomes more practical too. Of course for PvP to work, the arch types rally need to be balanced, such as all have the same status effect protection since we are talking solo stuff.

 

Sue

[Grouchybeast]

Support classes in CoX are godly.  Control is powerful.  Buff and debuff are ludicrously powerful,  How much of that are you willing to give up for a few measly points of status protection?  Personally, the very last thing I want is buffs to support class DPS and protection, because that would be crazy without drastically neutering their actual support powers, which are the best reason to play them in the first place,

 

If I want to solo, then I'll play a solo-focused AT.  (Or a support toon, because they can solo perfectly well, as long as you don't require that a support character solos just as well as a non-support AT.)

[Doomguide2005]

37 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

Support classes in CoX are godly.  Control is powerful.  Buff and debuff are ludicrously powerful,  How much of that are you willing to give up for a few measly points of status protection?  Personally, the very last thing I want is buffs to support class DPS and protection, because that would be crazy without drastically neutering their actual support powers, which are the best reason to play them in the first place,

 

If I want to solo, then I'll play a solo-focused AT.  (Or a support toon, because they can solo perfectly well, as long as you don't require that a support character solos just as well as a non-support AT.)

This a thousand times.

 

I've zero interest in gaining buffs to my solo protection and dps in exchange for weaker buffs and debuffs.  And not weakening support sets in the exchange is a dangerous path to follow.  Support sets are just that ATs designed to support other characters in their efforts and who also happen in many cases to be very capable solo.

 

But this is tangential to the subject of the thread so enough said.

[oedipus_tex]

Limiting Level Shifts to incarnate content and taming iPowers are the two things that would extend my interest. 

[Doomguide2005]

I think @Bill Z Bubba, @Darmian in particular really hit it on the head for why I kept thinking about CoX for the 7 long years 'tween times and what keeps me here now.   I enjoy the challenge of the building a potent character but I also, especially for some of them, enjoy their story imagined through the game, the beauty of it all ... they said it so much better and captured it better than I am.

[Techwright]

I can only speak from my perspective, though judging from other comments, it overlaps.   

 

My personal preference is to team through content, rather than solo or duo.  This is polar opposite to any other MMO I've regularly played, probably because Pick Up Groups here are usually polite.  Unfortunately, that means almost always sacrificing storyline missions.  If you watch the LFG channel (in my case on Excelsior), PUG storyline teaming is almost never brought up, though radio/newspaper teams reasonably often are.  I suspect this happens for a few reasons:

1.  zone containment.  Original content was written to send a player often outside a zone.  Why?  Probably because its a time sync:  keep the player occupied in the game, but not pushing for a volume of content not currently developed.  When storyline PUGs are run, I usually see calls for ones contained entirely (or nearly so) in one zone, such as the Hollows missions.    Bottom line is players are willing to go to a zone, but not all over the place.  Why else is Numina TF so reviled?  So a hard look at storyline pathing might make it more appealing.

2. No investment by the team in story content.   That is, the team has been conditioned to "go there, kill/arrest/rescue/find that", and that's about it.  As a result, it's the rare PUG team that's willing for a lead to read through the storyline content on each mission.  There needs to found a better way to invest the full team in the storyline.  The Summer Blockbuster might serve as one template towards this end.

3.  XP.  Why run missions for an hour for half a level's gain when I can plow through a task force/strike force in the same amount of time and level twice?  I mean, I do this, but even I'm aware that it gets dull after a while running repeatedly even something fun like Moonfire TF,   I'm not sure what the answer is:  bump up the story mission XP?  provide an increased chance for rare drops?  Give diminishing returns for running a TF after getting the badge for repeating a Weekly? Other?

 

While I'm mentioning this, I feel street sweeping could use some love as well.  Back in 2005, there was a lot of it going on.  Today, it feels like an afterthought, and about the only time I see it is when a TF requires it.  One thing I've felt it could benefit from is the street boss.  This is the "Hogger" types, for those of you who've played WOW.  Being able to beard the lion in his den, and hopefully get a nice drop with it.   The closest thing I've seen to this is the prison break event in Brickstown.  I actually enjoy the event.  It's one of the few things on the street that makes me nervous to solo as I climb the ranks, rather than feel like I'm the alpha predator.  

 

Changes to these, especially where it feels like a challenge even to a 50, might reinvigorate this content, and consequently add to retention.

[CrudeVileTerror]

We kind of touched on this in a recent massively-huge thread, but retention is kind of a dirty word.

Players are people.  People are allowed to come and go with their leisure-time activities.

While this MMO is a social game, and you require other players to engage in several social activities within the game, "retention" isn't really the crux of the issue as far as I'm concerned.

Bringing in fresh faces is.

People who -haven't- done it all a million times, and are endlessly grinding in circles as a holding pattern while they hope that something new emerges to capture their attention for a weekend.

 

But if you really want to maintain a grip on existing players, then I hold the firm stance that it's time to think outside the box.  Continually attempting to pursue the methods of a for-profit development studio with paid employees is NOT conducive to maintaining this game in the long term with a volunteer development team and a -heavily- aged playerbase. 

It's time for new innovations and radical departures from assumed norms.

Of course, I'm not advocating for getting -rid- of anything.  I'm saying we need to offer NEW options.

 

And it's okay to make mistakes and fail while exploring new developments, even if some players give "constructive criticism" a bad name.

[Doc_Scorpion]

15 hours ago, Techwright said:

While I'm mentioning this, I feel street sweeping could use some love as well.  Back in 2005, there was a lot of it going on.

Back in 2005 there were no radio missions and several "holes" in the leveling/contact chains...  Street sweeping filled in those and other holes.  Now radio missions fill those holes.

Edited to add:  Automatic sidekicking ended Mentor Tetris and made it easier for players of different levels to group together, that also help end the percieved need for street sweeping.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Doc_Scorpion

[Pzn]

19 hours ago, oedipus_tex said:

Limiting Level Shifts to incarnate content and taming iPowers are the two things that would extend my interest. 

I don't think nerfs are the answer to retaining players.

[krj12]

More end game content, more i-trials, and most importantly ..... more ways to advance our level 50s beyond what they are.

Let's face it,  MMOs are primarily about enhancing and advancing your characters.   When that advancement ends,  the game becomes stale and dead.

And no, I never bought into the line "go make another alt".  That just doesn't cut it any more.

 

I'm not talking about raising the level cap, but maybe more incarnate powers would help for now, with corresponding new trials needed to unlock them.

 

[Tahliah]

On 12/2/2020 at 1:37 PM, spartan52 said:

I agree there is a ton of different missions and story archs to do. But why? To me thats the biggest issue. There is no motivation to go do anything other than rush to level 50 and constantly do task forces, etc. to grind for merits. The devs are doing a great job and I am very limited in my knowledge of game development so I am not trying to rush them or tell them how to do their unpaid job lol. I feel the best comparison to this game I can make is to World of Warcraft. WOW although there is plenty of issues within the game, has succeeded not just by coming out with new content every week. But coming out with content that forces the player into trying to reach a goal. In city of heroes at the moment there isnt really a goal other than to reach 50 and then make your character as strong as possible. 

When I read your OP, I thought understood what you were asking, but then I read this, and now I'm just confused. So you aren't looking for things to do (you agree that there is A LOT to do), but you are concerned about "why" you would do any of it?  I do not and have never played WOW, so perhaps I am missing your meaning.  Again, I find this confusing.  What "motivation" do you mean?  What goals do you want to be "forced" to reach like in WOW?

 

For me, though, there is motivation in badging.  I'm not just killing this and that or completing this arc or mission, I'm doing it because I'll get a glorious shiny new badge at the end.  While I'm not "forced" to this, it's fun for me and for all the other badgers out there.  It's a goal that makes me happy.

 

Min/maxing is something a lot of players enjoy, the goal being to achieve their best "X".

 

One goal I set for myself is to complete all of the missions in the entire game that are available via Ouro/pillar of flame.  I did this on live for blueside and am now motivated to hit Red and Gold side this time around (once I finish Blue).

 

A lot of people love their supergroups and find motivation in those.  Active super groups set goals, have varying requirements (from Hard Core to Old School to weekly task force challenges--all one AT, all master of, etc.), and generally make things fun and challenging for their members.  Motivation, in other words, to compete with and/or to work with your sg to achieve sg goals.

 

There are some truly great arcs and even a few really good single mishes in AE.  Maybe get motivated to write a stellar arc that gets dev. noticed and rewarded?

 

Get motivated to try something new among our great communities.  Never tried role-playing?  Give it a shot.  What about PvP?  Whatever your PvE main is, get motivated to adapt his/her second build for PvP (totally different builds required for that! A challenge!). 

 

Never farmed before?  Build the best darned farmer in the game and become a rock star farmer.

 

In short, you don't need the game/devs to give you motivation, motivate yourself (or find an sg that can motivate you).  If you aren't motivated to motivate yourself, I'm not sure anything the devs can do would ever help.

[Doc_Scorpion]

2 hours ago, Tahliah said:

If you aren't motivated to motivate yourself, I'm not sure anything the devs can do would ever help.

Quoted. For. Truth.

[galaxgal]

Making a question about a community issue (retention) into a personal issue isn't constructive.

 

You can design a game in ways that retain or diffuse players over time.

 

That said, this is more of a philosophy around incentives, and not something that there is a single "solution" for.

 

The fact of the matter remains that for huge swathes of content, the incentive design isn't very good because it was inherited from the awkward free-to-play mechanics of the live days.

Never mind that the Incarnate system was left unfinished...

 

Players will pursue incentives, and the variety shown by that "bucketloads of content" will be better shown by thinking more about incentives and improving the signalling of what comes from where. Obviously, no, we can't expect huge retail-level content drops, and the game shouldn't be designed like WoW, but we can still have a constructive discussion about what can be done, especially from the perspective of the low programming manpower of the current HC team.

[Clave Dark 5]

I'm pretty sure this stance will net me a lot of forum popularity, but I don't see an issue with this, or "the problem"?  Otherwise this seems like a lot of "there's a problem, but what is it?" and then people offering up their pet peeves to fill that blank.  I mean, play how you like, don't do the stuff you don't, and hey, even CoH may one day stop being interesting for you, it happens. 

 

[golstat2003]

On 12/2/2020 at 12:43 PM, Doc_Scorpion said:

I'm not dismissing it, I'm sounding a warning.  I'm pointing out that UO is a corpsicle, living death frozen in time.  And as you point out, HC is already riding dangerously close to that line...

I want HC to be closer to what it was on Live - a living game within a vibrant City.  I don't want HC to evolve further along the same lines UO did - catering to the hardest of the hard core.  Catering to those who "won" the game by rushing to highest levels and now complain of "nothing to do".  That social meta isn't a healthy game, it's a death spiral.

 

This is simply going to be impossible with the size of the team we have and the age of the game. It's not a realistic also with a game this old.

[golstat2003]

On 12/2/2020 at 2:30 PM, Haijinx said:

Yeah.  But I'd say the majority of players do not even see the problem. 

 

Bet the Dodos never saw it coming either.  

 

  

 

More like a majority of players don't care. They like their power game fantasy.

[golstat2003]

On 12/5/2020 at 10:19 PM, oedipus_tex said:

Limiting Level Shifts to incarnate content and taming iPowers are the two things that would extend my interest. 

And it's one thing that would make me lose interest fast.

[thunderforce]

On 12/6/2020 at 3:19 AM, oedipus_tex said:

Limiting Level Shifts to incarnate content and taming iPowers are the two things that would extend my interest. 

I agree; but I think this is another case where doing something for the long-term good of the game might have such drastic short-term consequences as to be a Pyrrhic victory. (That said, I think level shifts are _so bad_ (in DA content, too) it would be worth trying it.)

[Haijinx]

2 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

More like a majority of players don't care. They like their power game fantasy.

My point exactly

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, thunderforce said:

I agree; but I think this is another case where doing something for the long-term good of the game might have such drastic short-term consequences as to be a Pyrrhic victory. (That said, I think level shifts are _so bad_ (in DA content, too) it would be worth trying it.)

DA content is meant to be incarnate content. It would make no sense limiting them there. You should just build higher level content with Incarnate shifts in mind.