What Can Be Done to Recruit Players?

[Troo]

[Troo]

oops sorry I meant:

[TheZag]

I have 1 example of a new (returning) player being chased off from getting powerleveled.  I helped him with a hunt in perez park that was slightly above his level.  He was suprised that i was the same level as him and wondered why my level number was orange colored (i was on a lvl 50).  I explained exemplar to him as he either forgot or left before exemplar was a thing during the retail run.

 

I teamed with him through some of the skulls missions in kings row while explaining some of the HC changes ans getting him back up to speed in general.  Before i had to leave i gave him 1 IO set that would work in his power and a few million influence (not hundreds of millions.  Enough to buy SOs and switch to common IOs around lvl 25).  I global friended him too so we could team up again sometime.

 

I saw him the next day, or maybe it was 2 days,  and he was around level 20.  Turns out he joined an AE farm team but didnt realize what that meant.  He told me he got about 6 levels before he knew what was going on and quit the team before he went higher.  He felt that he missed some contacts and missions from being powerleveled.  I let him know that they can be redone through ouroboros and proceeded to take him there to show him how.

 

After that he transferred to excel.  Im assuming because it was higher population but probably not the best place for someone that was trying to avoid AE farms.  There are plenty of other groups there but also a constant stream of people running and asking for farms.

 

And then he quit.  When i first helped him in perez park he was super excited and couldnt believe city of heroes was back.  I cant say for sure that the powerleveling was the only reason he left but it likely contributed to him leaving.  I dont fault the farmer either but if we are trying to retain new players then we need to put a bit more effort on figuring out if new players are joining our farms and letting them know that they will outlevel their contacts and have to replay missed stories through ouro.  Then the new player can decide if they want powerleveling.

 

 

Then we have alot of people saying the game is old.  Old games are a thing now and people play them all the time.  But City of Heroes wont pop up in someones recommended list.  Its up to us to get the word out.  I was actually trying to find if that replacement hero game ever launched when i happened to find a link saying heroes was back.  But the majority of it is up to us to get the word out.  Ive already told my family and friend and gaming coworkers but i dont have the facebooks or twitters or any social media besides the homecoming forum.

 

I would probably wear a shirt saying CoH is back with the homecoming website printed on it though.

 

 

[ShardWarrior]

@TheZag - not that I doubt your story here but how can you be certain this person actually quit the game?  There can be any number of reasons a person has not logged in for a period of time.  Also, unless that person told you farming and power leveling is what specifically drove them away, then it is as you admitted, just an assumption.

 

Totally agree there are a lot of people advertising or looking for farms on Excel.  It is entirely up to the individual though.  No one is forced to join a team they do not want to be on.  There are also a great many people advertising non-speed, defeat most runs of various TFs and SFs.

 

As for getting the word out being up to us, I completely agree.  There seems to be a lot of people with good ideas on what to do, but do not want to put forth any effort and look to someone else to implement them.

[Plasmic Rage]

I actually do not advocate for nerfing AE. It IS a part of the game and a segment of the population loves it. If the goal is recruitment and retention, why do something that will cause more players to leave? Instead, keep AE as it is and ADD something to the game for the players that don't want to farm or power level. I suggested something along these lines a while ago: have a hero/villain path with achievements that require focused play (no XP boost, no P2W buffs, etc.), required difficult mission and TF chains, rewards and powers that are exclusive to this method of playing, and limit their availability to only one toon at a time per account. So, if a player wants to make an alt for this purpose they can, but the current toon that has been on this focused path loses all that it acquired and will have to start over again if the player changes their mind. In many ways this is what the Incarnate system was supposed to be, but that became as easy as everything else.

 

The idea being, the long-view crowd also have something to play for with their own objectives and challenges, and they know when they stand in Atlas next to a 50+1 that was created 6 hours earlier, that each achieved what they wanted, but they are noticeably very different and a player can't have a single toon that has done both.

 

If recruitment and retention is the goal, then options need to open up, not close down.

[Neiska]

A few more thoughts about player retention, more then recruitment. These are my mere thoughts and opinions, and aren't directed at anyone specifically.

 

1. More varied mission types - A lot of the missions seem a bit repetitive. They are either - Rescue NPC #4591, Find the glowy-clicky, defeat X number of things, or get X being and the enemies in their vicinity. Not "every" mission can fall under these, but I feel the majority of them. It would be nice to mix it up and have new mission types, like a mission where you are sneaking "out" of a base, and not "in", where you don't know where the exit is. Or even missions where it is Side A vs side B and you are watching them fight it out, and so on.

 

2. More varied "random" events. Not just "X force spotted" or "X thing is attacking." They are too similar, and also almost too predictable. Unless it's a holiday event, or a friend needs a badge, I really don't get much excited anymore.

 

3. This suggestion might split the community somewhat, but how would people feel about special badges? For example, a special badge for someone who got to level cap without using AE, or who has hunted down every GM in the game, or every AV? Maybe make "playstyle" badges of some sort? What about supergroup badges? As an example, lets say a team of the same supergroup finish story lines, contact arcs, so on, and those who were present got a special sort of group badge for it? Badge hunting/collecting is a perusable activity as well.

 

4. One thing that I have noticed that few have commented on is PVP. I am not a PVPer myself but I support those whom are. And out of the various playstyles (PVE, AE, AH, PVP, etc) Pvp has the "least" amount of tools/systems available to them. I mean, if there was something like a seasonal ladder or ranking system, people might become more interested and competitive. I dislike open world PVP myself because A. I'm bad at it and B. It seems more of a gankfest than a duel. But I do agree that PVP does give another legit form of gameplay that some are passionate about, and I don't think it would take overly much to give them a few tools to make it a more legitimized and popular form of play, as well as replay-ability.

 

Just some more random thoughts from me while I kill time at work.

[Ironblade]

2 hours ago, TheZag said:

I have 1 example of a new (returning) player being chased off from getting powerleveled.

 

<snip>

 

I cant say for sure that the powerleveling was the only reason he left but it likely contributed to him leaving.

"likely contributed".  So, you actually have no idea why he left and decided to regale us with this diatribe.

Since you clearly actually care about the game population, did it occur to you to *ASK* him why he quit so you could use that information?

[TheZag]

Since he doesnt log on anymore i couldnt ask him.  And after months offline im comfortable saying that he quit.  Sure he could show back up tomorrow, but until that happens,  he has quit.  I would love to live in the world where everyone gets 100% certainty and not having to use assumptions and educated guesses,  but that just isnt real.  Dude was upset that he got a bunch of levels in a farm.  I showed him ouro,  he was still bummed but played for a few more days.

 

Even if he quit for a totally different reason,  he was still invited to a farm and powerleveled when he didnt want it.  Had he known im sure he wouldnt have joined the team.  For us its obvious,  but for him the AE building was the same as any other mission door that he might get sent to.  We need to make sure we are taking care of our new players.  And there is nothing wrong with farmers or farming but i see farmers advertising 'space in AE for a lowbie lvl 20 or less'.  That team advertisement isnt enough for a new player to actually know what is going on.  I can only hope that they are asking if people are new when they join the team and informing them that they will get a ton of levels really quickly and their old contacts will be outleveled.  For some people that is exactly what they want but for others they would not like to be powerleveled right out of the gate on their first character.  It really is up to us to make sure that new players get informed.

 

  

[ShardWarrior]

1 hour ago, TheZag said:

he was still invited to a farm and powerleveled when he didnt want it

 

Again @TheZag no reason to doubt you, however I have to admit I find this part of the story a bit suspicious.  I can see someone brand new getting a few bars or even a whole level on farm before they realize what is going on, but 6 levels before it dawned on them?  Just being honest here, but that is a bit of a stretch to me, especially since this was supposedly a returning player.

 

No one other than that player accepted that team invite to the farm and they could have asked what a farm was before joining.  From my experience, farms are advertised as such in LFG.  A person brand new to gaming can ask what a farm is before joining a team.  I know I have had people send me tells asking what things like SBB or DiB stood for, which I was happy to explain when asked.

 

While I agree the community here can be a big help in supporting new players, I am not sure we want to start imposing hard rules on what language to use when advertising for farms or specific instructions when running and inviting "new" people to farm teams to make sure they really want to join or not.  

[TheZag]

not sure what to tell ya.  i havent farmed in a long time so i went in to see and took an alt from lvl 8 to lvl 15 in 4 minutes and then i realized i had hasten turned off and got to 18 in another 2 minutes.  6 minutes is fast for 10 levels if you arent expecting it and a real farmer is much faster than me.  I would think it took less then 4 minutes for him to go from 12-18.  But this is just 1 story about 1 player and is likely outside of usual circumstances and intended to be aimed at retaining new players and not for recruiting them.

 

The mobs in my damage aura while writing this leveled my alt up again 😛

[Saikochoro]

Honestly even if the friend did leave because of farming it still doesn’t mean that anything needs to be done about farming. I had a friend that logged on in the first week of homecoming and had totally forgotten about things like DFB or farms. He also didn’t know about the pay to win vendor. He played for a several hours, got bored, and quit.

 

When I asked him if he would try playing with me he said that running around doing low level radios, contacts, or street sweeping was a lot more boring than he remembered and had no interest in doing that again.  I proceeded to nag him for a long time (many months) to try again. 

 

When I finally got him to try it again I introduced him to the pay to win vendor, DFB, and farming. I helped him farm an alt account to be able to farm himself. I taught him how to craft and convert for influence and also helped deck out his first couple 50s. He has been regularly playing ever since.
 

So just as farming might have deterred one individual it has certainly encouraged another individual to stick around. To imply that curtailing power leveling will somehow get new players to stay is flawed. It may get some people to stay, but would certainly get others to leave.  I myself wouldn’t have stuck around if I couldn’t power level easily. 
 

There correct answer is to leave options open for people to play how they want to play. Veteran homecoming players can help by answering questions, but it is also on new players to ask questions and decide if they like something or not. There are plenty of varied team advertisements for all sorts of in game activities for people to choose from. It’s not just farm advertisements. 

[SwitchFade]

12 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

 

I have to ask, where are all these masses of new players that were instantly AE farmed to 50, got bored and swiftly quit you are describing here?  I would love to see some Reddit posts or something where they discuss their impressions en masse. 

Come now, that's a fair bit of hyperbole, dontchathink?

 

I was quite clear we only get a trickle of new players.

 

Really, I don't need to research what is already posted on the forums, online and easily accessible, we can all recall many posts (some in this thread) from newbies and vets alike that left due to the factors I have mentioned. It was was well and thoroughly discussed to death on live, with data, that the player base saw a massive drop in the time after AE, and never recovered.

 

To be clear again, it's not like I think farming is bad, just that newbies should not be corraled into AE and farming/DFB right out of the gate. Where's the harm in no AE in Atlas or KR, no spam in chat recruiting and DFB stopping at lvl 10?

 

As I said, we get so few new players, we should do everything possible to assure our retention rate is very high.

[SwitchFade]

12 hours ago, Excraft said:

 

Ok.  Share some of these "facts" with us then.  Can you post links to empirical data from Homecoming or any of the other CoH servers showing how many of these new players came in, got insta PLed to 50 then quit because of farming?  Would love to see these "facts" of yours. 

 

 

You can already enjoy the aspects of the game you want to here.  No ones forcing anyone into doing something they don't want to do here.  Following your logic here, PvP, marketeering, RP, speed runs or whatever other play style you don't like should get removed because someone can find some negative aspect to them.  Where exactly does that end? 

Already replied to a similar post.

 

Following up a post ascribing whining to people with another post using snarky quotes to emphasize the point you don't believe "facts" are facts is fairly acerbic, yeah?

 

You can find plenty of proof right here on these forums. I would help you, but as I mentioned, I'm not inclined to take your perspective seriously when your method of disseminating it uses such pointed remarks.

[ShardWarrior]

52 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

Come now, that's a fair bit of hyperbole, dontchathink?

 

I was quite clear we only get a trickle of new players.

 

Really, I don't need to research what is already posted on the forums, online and easily accessible, we can all recall many posts (some in this thread) from newbies and vets alike that left due to the factors I have mentioned. It was was well and thoroughly discussed to death on live, with data, that the player base saw a massive drop in the time after AE, and never recovered.

 

Whether it be a trickle or a flood of players, I would still very much like to see this empirical evidence of yours that points to farming and DFB being the main reasons new players are either not trying or trying and then swiftly  leaving the game.  I am happy to wait for you to post that data here so we can all examine it. 

 

What has been posted here ranges from subjective opinions and edge cases to pure speculation and hyperbole.

Edited April 28, 2022 by ShardWarrior

[Bill Z Bubba]

37 minutes ago, ShardWarrior said:

Whether it be a trickle or a flood of players, I would still very much like to see this empirical evidence of yours that points to farming and DFB being the main reasons new players are either not trying or trying and then swiftly  leaving the game.  I am happy to wait for you to post that data here so we can all examine it. 

 

What has been posted here ranges from subjective opinions and edge cases to pure speculation and hyperbole.

 

But that's where we're left. Ain't nobody but the devs got empircal data bout shit. I'm still waiting to see the actual data on how their tank changes turned brutes into a non-played AT outside of fire farmers. Let's see the data. Let's see how many new accounts were created and abandoned within X time period.

 

Damn typos.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Crysis]

Y’all realize this entire thread is an echo chamber of die hard longtime COH players right?  Not a single voice from an absolute newcomer.  We play for our own reasons, and those reasons frankly have exactly zero relevance to attracting new players because NONE of us represent the interests or motivations of new players.

 

EDIT: To ensure I’m not being entirely hyperbolic in my comment here, I actually tallied up all the posters in this thread with ‘merely’ double digit post histories.  I count 2 posters with single digit post histories.  I’ll count them as ‘newcomers.’  The overwhelming majority of posters in this thread, myself included, are well into triple digit post histories and many several thousand posts under their belts.  We are not the droids you are looking for, as it were, and thus not likely a good reference for what a “new” player would even look like.

 

If you were one of my clients in the business world, I’d say you need to convene a panel made up of gamers who -might- be interested in a retro game based on a superhero theme and survey THOSE non-players of COH to see what would entice them to TRY COH.

 

But good luck with that because any new crop of players even remotely interested in a superhero MMO circa 2010 would say “lol wut” and not even participate in the survey, let alone play this game.

 

This is one big circle jerk.  Forums have been that way since Live days.  Active forum participants are already a micro-segment of the broader game population.  What matters to us is not representative of the game population in general.  And what matters to them is unknown and un-knowable, by us here at least.  

Edited April 28, 2022 by Crysis

[Bill Z Bubba]

12 minutes ago, Crysis said:

hat matters to us is not representative of the game population in general.

 

I agree with your whole post except this bit. We *are* representative of the larger population. Always have been, always will be. It's horseshit to believe otherwise.

 

Edit: The only difference between us and the non-forum-posting population is that we are the posting-population.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Bill Z Bubba

[Crysis]

9 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I agree with your whole post except this bit. We *are* representative of the large population. Always have been, always will be. It's horseshit to believe otherwise.

 

No Bill.  You are representative of the “OLD guard” so to speak.  You in particular.  Me too but likely not quite as old school as you are.

 

The thread title infers NEW players.  People who have never heard of this game, or at best, have heard of it but never played it or only back on Live a month or so.  If you want NEW players, gotta figure out what appeals to NEW players.  Not to you.  Not to me.  We are inherently biased and thus our opinions on what would make a NEW player attracted to this game is dramatically biased.  We’d get thrown out of any panel surveys designed by big marketing firms to determine how to find NEW players.

 

You want NEW players?  Go look at what they are playing RIGHT NOW.  It’s not this game.  It’s Runescape.  LOTR Online.  Black Desert Online. Those are among the top CURRENT MMO’s, although I’ll grant you most MMO’s are MMORPG’s, whereas I’d classify retro COH more of a MMO Action game.  

 

My point isn’t to belittle our opinions.  But to recognize what matters to US here in this thread is likely nowhere near what matters to players of those other current top MMO’s.  You want to attract THOSE players to come here?  Figure out what attracts them to THOSE games.  And either replicate it (highly unlikely given this is a 12+ year old retro codebase) or simulate it to get their attention….or possibly appeal to their retro-gaming, nostalgic ideals and bang on the “free!” Drum.

 

That’s always the problem with these kinds of discussions though.  Seasoned players talk about what THEY think the absolute neophyte wants or would want as if they are an authority on the subject.  They are categorically totally ignorant of what a new player wants/desires because they are not now, nor can ever be again, a “new” player to this game.

 

Forest…meet trees.

Edited April 28, 2022 by Crysis

[ShardWarrior]

12 minutes ago, Crysis said:

But to recognize what matters to US here in this thread is likely nowhere near what matters to players of those other current top MMO’s.

 

I disagree with this entirely. 

[ForeverLaxx]

17 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

There are a few people here who are of the opinion farming is the reason the game is in population decline and that AE should get removed completely because it is driving new players away.

Quoted for full context.

 

17 hours ago, ShardWarrior said:

AE should get removed completely because it is driving new players away

Singled out to point out the strawman.

 

When the subject of AE first came up, it was in reference to the building being inside player starting zones. The suggestion was to move it out of player starting zones. The strawman went up almost immediately and has now warped future conversion about the AE in regards to new players into the narrative that the strawman exists to attack. A bunch of you just decided that the argument was the removal of AE because "farms are bad" and ran with it when the actual argument was the removal of AE from starting player zones only. Only after that happened could you perhaps say one or two people decided to blame farming outright, perpetuating the strawman and justifying your position after-the-fact.

 

I followed the thread from the beginning. All I did was point this out and you're still trying to gaslight the story into what you want it to be instead of what it originally was since what you want it to be is easier to shoot down. I don't particularly care what happens to the AE; I just find it funny that any mention of AE in any capacity other than "more AE everywhere" gets interpreted as removal of the entire system.

Edited April 28, 2022 by ForeverLaxx

[Crysis]

7 hours ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I agree with your whole post except this bit. We *are* representative of the larger population. Always have been, always will be. It's horseshit to believe otherwise.

 

Edit: The only difference between us and the non-forum-posting population is that we are the posting-population.

I’d argue that by default -most- players of this game know the forum exists since it plays a role in getting your account setup.

 

But I could quiz most forum posters and discover quickly that there are dozens of differences between forum posters and non posters.  Stuff like DPA, pseudo-pets, proc rates, MIDS, marketeering, etc…..those things take up pages of discussions.  Even casual forum posters likely know what those things are, although likely at different levels of understanding.

 

But pure game players who just load up the client, make a toon and play it and never visit forums again……Bill that’s an entirely different kind of player.  And -most- of us aren’t that kind of player and have very little ability to discern what that kind of player wants outside of n=1 anecdotes, blamestorming AE or whatever.  
 

Again….echo chamber. 
 

And I’m obviously contributing to the echo along with everyone else so…..I’m out!

[ShardWarrior]

@ForeverLaxx I am not sure why you keep directing this at me or what you are on about, but I would kindly ask that you please do your research for clarity.  There have been many posts made on these forums over the years by players who have expressed their opinions about power leveling and AE and have gone so far as to suggest its outright removal.  You are even admitting there are a few here in this thread.  There is a history there and if you frequent the forums enough, this would be clear.

 

A few have made suggestions about removing the AE building from starting zones and removing XP from everything other that Developers Choice missions, which as you know would be a rather large nerf toward the farming and power leveling community.  Again, it is perfectly fine for people to dislike farming, dislike power leveling, dislike AE and feeling that it hurts the game and offering suggestions.  Those pointing out that power leveling and farming was around long before AE existed and removing AE from starter zones or even entirely would do nothing to stop those activities are making a legitimate point.

 

[ForeverLaxx]

@ShardWarrior

My initial comment wasn't directed at you, but you quoted me anyway so I responded. If you're seriously trying to turn this around and pretend you're being targeted, that's really sad. I'm not dignifying the rest of your insanity with a response.

[Darmian]

I'm going to throw a spanner into the machine here, sort of.  There seems to me at least to be a disconnect between what, for want of a better phase, the purpose/point of CoX is, and how players play it. There's a lot of discussion on how all the various niche communities have their role and are entitled to that and they're hurting no one and that's how they get their enjoyment, and why not?

 

At the risk of pissing off a lot of people, the original, and I think still under the current administration, point/purpose of CoX, is to play a super powered person in the world of Paragon/RI/Praetoria. It is not to spend your entire time sitting in the AE, however much fun that is and however much that is a chosen playstyle.  Choosing to do so and enjoying such a thing is entirely legitimate - and as someone who mains a level 50 Gold(!) I do know about enjoyment of personal game play choices - but it seems to this player at least that going forward that any efforts to increase player retention or to advance the game world narrative or tools will definitely focus on the world at large, and AE farming/whatever is seen as a minor part of this.  

 

Now, as has been said, validly I think, we are a sort of echo chamber here.  We're going in the usual circles.  However, if it ever seems that removing AE from starting zones would somehow benefit the main game then I expect it will be seriously considered. Whether or not that comes to pass or not is another thing entirely.  

Edited April 28, 2022 by Darmian

[InvaderStych]

11 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

There correct answer is to leave options open for people to play how they want to play. Veteran homecoming players can help by answering questions, but it is also on new players to ask questions and decide if they like something or not. There are plenty of varied team advertisements for all sorts of in game activities for people to choose from. It’s not just farm advertisements. 

 

This is the most correct answer.  Emphasis added to emphasize the correctness.

 

Removing options is not going to increase the player count.  Those options are this game's greatest strength.

 

The best way to retain players is Community.  And new players finding this thread are not likely to find a compelling and inviting community within, despite the fact that this game does have an extremely compelling and overwhelmingly inviting community.

 

Yet this thread does not demonstrate such at all.

 

It doesn't matter what the in-game activity is: be it running arc teams, leading WSTs, AE/Mission farming, marketeering, starting "challenge" groups with self-imposed rule-sets, building bases and running an IC Real Estate Agent, leading Trials (incarnate and otherwise), organizing CCs, handing out free inf and purps to newbies, or whatever.

 

It is not the content that will make this game inviting.  It is the players.  I am one of the many who returned to the game at the start of Lockdown2020; I remain first of all because of friends made during that dark time and secondly because this game above all others has always been "Play your own way" not "YOU MUST WEAR THIS GEAR AND FOLLOW THIS PATH OR YOU ARE TERRIBAD LOLOLOLOL"

 

But I'm just an old weirdo, so maybe don't listen to me and just keep arguing in circles about things that don't matter. 🤷‍♂️

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by InvaderStych
formatting and stuff