Player Retention Mechanics

[Awoooo]

Putting aside complaints, I’m pretty sure that all of us still playing the game DO want to see the game continue so we can continue enjoying it. So let’s discuss a particular area that ToS lacks in - retention strategies.

Most games have these as standards now. Why do games use them? Because they work. They keep players coming back, which keeps them up to date with the game.

What is a player retention mechanic? Well there are several types, but the general idea of retention is to keep players playing. The easiest one to describe you will have seen in other games are daily rewards. Login and get a small bonus. Login multiple days in a row and get a bigger bonus.

ToS should include more of these. Events are another type of retention strategy, but I don’t feel like they’re working very effectively on their own.

One of my favourites from Smite is:

Weekly bonus.
Day 1 to 5 login, get an increasing amount of silver.
Day 6+7 5TP and 10TP.
Resets to day 1.

What have you seen in other games and why do you think it would work well in ToS to keep players checking/playing the game?

[ophiuchu]

Dark Age of Camelot

This game constantly patches, updated their graphics, and tons of other things but yet the game is basically a lost cause for players. They have campaigns for coming back and everything which still does not work because the problem stems beyond just making it appealing to login. The game needs to be fun beyond just being stuffed full of rewards getting your foot in the door. If the game is empty and has nothing engaging for players to do then nobody is going to stick around especially if it’s bugged and performs poorly.

[Nirimetus]

I will tell you one thing tho, I’m completely against this daily login reward thing.

The reason is, it’s not a solid retention, if the game doesn’t have a solid content and depend only on daily logins for online player peaks, then it’s not a good game.

The only game imo that have success with that is GW2, that is, because GW2, besides not being perfect, have some nice attractive content, be it for starting player or veteran at end game, for these, the daily login are only a small addition.

This game indeed need content to hook up players. but for now, the game still in it’s alpha stage, even tho the company decided to release it.

So you won’t see anything new so soon.

[Awoooo]

I don’t think anyone said anything about retention mechanics being the only reason people play.

There is a serious issue with some people on the forum homing in on making something a negative rather than positive. Building negative roadblocks to things that will have a longterm positive effect on population.

Allow me to draw your attention historically to CSGO and the reason CSGO became popular in the first place. It was a deadgame(by counter strike standards). They had attempted numerous free weekends and events to increase player populations, with the power of steam advertising to back them. However these events only temporarily increased the playerbase. People checked it out. Then they left immediately afterwards.

What caused the playerbase of CSGO to rise?

Retention mechanics.

They introduced the market, which allowed players to start trading. Once this update occurred, every boom of new players didn’t end with those new players leaving the game shortly afterwards, those players continued to play the game afterwards.

Graph:

The Arms Deal update was the update that introduced the ability for players to trade and cash skins. This was the key player retention mechanic that caused CSGO to explode.

Please understand that a good game can exist without actually retaining players. It was upon implementation of the correct player retention mechanics that CSGO grew. Take note of how the playerbase boosts never continued to play the game before the Arms Deal update, then, when the Arms Deal update occurred, they continued playing. This then fed into their esports focus, which put the game in front of many eyes with each major event, and cause players to pick the game up to try it, then continuing to play it afterwards due to high-quality retention mechanics. Of course, Arms Deal wasn’t the whole picture. The Winter Offensive update included much-needed balance changes that stopped a lot of reasons people were quitting too. Retention goes hand in hand with improved gameplay.

Nobody is suggesting that the game should be bad and rely on retention mechanics.

I am merely suggesting that it is ignorant to assume retention mechanics = bad game, or that retention mechanics take away purpose from good games. Good games exist without retention mechanics that are dead, because they don’t keep their playerbase when they get publicity.

There is no reason to suggest that implementing retention mechanics hurts gameplay. It does not. It only contributes to people sticking with the game for a longer time period when they try it after publicity.

EDIT: Take extra note that the arms deal update was a solid 1 year after the game originally released. It took that long for CSGO to truly find its legs. And it was the retention mechanics that played a huge role.

You NEED to keep players playing once you get them into the game after a publicity boost. If you don’t keep them playing then your publicity boost is a waste. Retention mechanics play that role.

[ymint_numbaTREE]

this is good to have tbh. and yeah why other ver got it and we got none? too hard to translate?

but ppl or the dev still fail to see whats the problem/downfall with TOS.
I will jz name 1 for now , contents - and here I’m not saying a freakin contents that u had to do/ can abuse with Tree of Alts mode.

[ophiuchu]

Then lets openly discuss one thing at a time. First thing you do in this game is start leveling. The typical person from most games likes this expects grind, grind, grind and then start becoming more powerful. This game at it’s core was flawed with them trying extremely hard to push quests on people with the card system. They programmed the horrible mob leashing and monster AI patterns which are predictable and not even remotely challenging. After they reduced spawn rates, density, and the introduction of dailies that killed half the appealing aspect of this game.

[Nirimetus]

I think I didn’t made myself clear.

What I’m saying is, for ToS, in it’s actual state, doesn’t matter what you do, as long as there is not concrete content: automated events (daily, weekly and/or monthly), solid PvP, solid PvE content as dungeons, missions and even open areas, it will only work as a band-aid in the end.

A company shouldn’t be looking for sporadic logins, that doesn’t bring money, neither make the game good.

Also, your comparison of ToS (a ARPG) with CS:GO (a FPS) is completely off.

CS:GO offer what? besides the team vs team content (CTF, death match, and if there’s PvE content, I’m sure it’s something simple as missions of rescue and elimination).

I’m not against the concept in it’s all, what I’m against is, implementing it now, just to act as a band-aid, so the dev team might feel, or the company CEO might feel better that there are some player peaks during the day.

This can be implemented later on, when the game feel more attractive, that way the login rewards would be viewed as an extra, not as a necessity.

As I said before, this game need to get up, or it will end up even worse later on.

[Awoooo]

Then lets openly discuss one thing at a time.

I agree. Let’s discuss one thing at a time.

This is a thread to discuss retention mechanics.

There are a million threads to discuss other mechanics. Make one for the other things you want to discuss instead of going offtopic. I have no issues with people wanting to discuss other mechanics, but do so in a relevant thread.

[NotSoAccurateNo1]

As far as the events go, ToS has all the information on the website. You can’t expect most players to diverge from the game to open up a 3rd party just to read some info. The current forum users only make up a small portion of the player base. So all the event/general update information needs to be posted either ingame or in the news section on steam.

[Sciguma]

With the nonexisting tos endgame content right now the only player retention is called Necromancer and the daily is to check if you got force logged out by some IMC henchman.
Daily TP or whatever doesn’t really help there.

[Awoooo]

I think a number of responses this thread has had so far highlights a problem that’s occurring on the forums.

There is a crowd of people that can not respect the topic. They take the topic of the thread and use it to talk about something else entirely, being negative about whatever the actual topic is while putting forward that their topic is a more important one.

Policing of offtopic/derailment would vastly improve the forums.

If you want to talk about improvements you want to see in End Game Content, make a thread for it. Discuss retention mechanics that could improve the game here. Discuss other mechanics in a thread for other mechanics.

[Sciguma]

I don’t talk about endgame here. It’s just without game content no retention works. Imagine an extreme example. Take an empty game which is just a white page being displayed with a coin number. Every day you get 5 coins for logging in.
Why should you do this?
TOS is the same - there is nothing to do. And if they throw out like 50 TP every day for login then all some people do is login grab logout or go back to Dina Bee.

[Awoooo]

1% of the players that try the game ever get to endgame in the first place. They leave a long time before it because the game doesn’t retain players. They quit before they ever reach it.

I would think that someone that cares about improving endgame would support keeping players in the game long enough for them to reach it. Then maybe endgame would be more important to the developers.

There’s a reason events aren’t for people level 300+ and are usually boring content for those players. It’s because they’re not the majority of players that need to be retained. It is at much lower levels that 90%+ of people trying the game quit.

Regardless of this, End Game isn’t a retention mechanic. You should make a thread to talk about changes you want to see for end game.

[ophiuchu]

I tried explaining it. The problem really is in lack of interesting and engaging content. The leveling design is flawed and boring so they supplemented that with events. They never really fixed the problem within the 140-200 range and just added in dailies and events. That only masks the problem that half the content they provide is boring through grinding. You can time yourself of how long it takes to level 1 to 200 and look at the charts to see that is where most players numbers fall off in time played.

What everyone else is saying about end game too is not far off.

[Awoooo]

Gameplay mechanics != retention mechanics

Stop.

[ophiuchu]

Oooo ouch the truth is hurting nooooo don’t do it everybody~ Noooo pleaaaase~ Huuugnnn game isn’t boring gameplay has no affect on retention stop stop stop! This is like what I’m seeing right now. It’s not the negative people ruining a game it’s there’s nothing really positive to talk about.

[Awoooo]

“I like your topic title. Let’s talk about something else.”

ToS forums in a nutshell.

[ophiuchu]

You ask for a civil discussion then can’t even handle accepting what people are saying. Every serious discussion ever had here period.

[ophiuchu]

Trying to say gameplay has no affect on player retention is madness to the point nobody should even discuss it after that point with said person. It’s not off topic but people getting offended trying to deny said point since they don’t like it. Pointing out the “player retention” methods actually being counter productive to said issue is also related when you are discussing methods of bringing players back and the reason why they are leaving.

[Nirimetus]

I would think that someone that cares about improving endgame would support keeping players in the game long enough for them to reach it. Then maybe endgame would be more important to the developers.

I take that you didn’t participate in any of the CBTs.

Support the game is one thing, but when you try to support it, and in return receive more problems and in fact, restrictions than necessary, you can’t keep going on the same.

I myself am no masochist, I supported this game, actually, the company, and not only me, if you look around, you will see lots of suggestions to improve the game, including the one you are proposing, it came 4 or 5 times before yours.

The company already admitted they don’t know how to fix some major bugs, or to complete the optimization, they would be required to remake all the map files, which is what they are doing as of now, hence, the long time for new significant patches.

Don’t come with biased opinion about what one should do to support a game, we do, most of us here do, but me and some others are already tired of waiting for this company to make the right move.

There’s a reason events aren’t for people level 300+ and are usually boring content for those players. It’s because they’re not the majority of players that need to be retained. It is at much lower levels that 90%+ of people trying the game quit.

Not the majority? Are you kidding? You have no idea how many players here have alts at that level already, not counting the ones at low-mid level content.

And don’t say stuff like that, it sound stupid (sorry for being blunt but I can’t find other word for that).

A game need content, be it low, mid or high level, a company shouldn’t be looking to fish new players and throw out old ones like rot fish, that is bad business.

Regardless of this, End Game isn’t a retention mechanic. You should make a thread to talk about changes you want to see for end game.

You are losing your focus, we are talking about retention, be it end game or during progress, you aren’t making any sense tbh. Retention is needed in any stage of the game, not only low and mid areas.

---

Honestly, I’m done with this thread, it’s too much non sense from a person who don’t have a basic view of how business work.