OK Iām still going to talk about retention mechanics as though they are anything that could potentially hold new players to the game.
Most players just starting out donāt really know whatās to come. From what Iāve seen in forums, of anybody posting their early quit experiences, they tend to drop out of the game between Crystal Mines and Tenet Garden.
I think itās from lack of exploration, the game guides you through a straight-line path through most of the game (thereās a couple splits here and there but the choice to go in either direction is not easily noticeable). Besides the start of the game where you can play from Orsha or from Klaip.
Like, the game seems boring because all the enemies youāve fought thus far have been tailored to your level, so you always feel like you canāt diverge from the right path. Up to Tenet Garden, thereās 3 points where you can accidentally step into a 100+ map, so you die and immediately turn around. Most players are not going to find the spot in Crystal Mines, nor are they going to stumble into the other two maps. In the case of RO, exploration was a huge part of the game. The world map was easy to read in a directional sense, but was also unlabeled so you could easily walk into any especially dangerous area. Most of the towns were disconnected and if you had to class up somewhere, you were most likely going to trudge through a few dangerous maps. The world map, while unreadable, still had art detailing the landscape, and you could take a pretty good guess where the dungeons were, or how to traverse a large area without having to mouse over every freakinā map, reading all the portal names so you didnāt fall to any misdirection.
So this aspect of the game could be fixed with some new world map art. If IMC wanted to go a step further:
- A lot of the world map layout, because of the portal direction in each map, is a mess to navigate. So a lot of the maps need to either have their portals re-positioned, or the maps themselves need to be relocated. If I exit eastward from one map, I should be entering the west side of the next map.
- The world map needs to drop the mouse-over popups and change them to click, and confirm (for teleport), so the world map doesnāt frame trap you.
- The world map art needs to reflect the true positions of each zone.
A Step Further:
*Most sub lvl 50 maps are almost totally safe to afk in. Thatās fine for the first 3, but past Crystal Mines, there should be more dangers introduced to the players. Panto Spearman is a pass. We need more of Panto Spearman.
A Step Further:
- There are currently 330 levels in game, which is to increase to 600 levels with rank 10 (correct me if Iām wrong). Killing monsters exclusively in a range of Ā±20 levels to the player is such a tiny demograph that it does not make sense. This window needs to be expanded.
- The added damage that players receive from higher level monsters needs to be removed. Gating the content to the playerās level sucks. This also heavily influences players willingness to explore.
- The reduced XP gain for lower level monsters (itās 1/4 or 25% XP gain) needs to be removed. If players enjoy farming in a lower level map, they should not be impeded by this XP reduction. It doesnāt work as a bot deterrent, bots have no perception of time, and the botters running those bots have no perception of the time spent botting. The rate that required-XP-per-level raises is already an indirect influence to keep killing same-level monsters. I donāt know how higher level xp gains are behaving right now, so I canāt say.
- Along with all of this, I do not think monsters should display their level. The ārecommended levelā stamp attached to every map is good enough. It might also be good to remove monstersā health bars.
As for bringing back old players, a ton of them quit after warring between guilds had died. We need an open world (or zone restricted) guild on guild pvp incentive.
