Tree of Savior Forum

Player Retention Mechanics

General Discussion
#43

Well, this mechanic would make some kind of sense if players wouldn’t be forced to log in daily to do the daily tasks anyway.

I’d like to see it in a way that players can do all their things weekly or monthly (not daily please, that’s unhealthy habit-forming and makes the game a chore) instead of daily, e.g. allowing token users to stack their runs up to 7 days worth before doing them. Then the daily log-in would make sense to have them recieve something extra if they play a little each day while saving their chores e.g. for the weekend or their free day.

But with the current setting, the main problem with the daily resets is one of the reasons that made the game tedious on the long run.
Another way to address this problem would be e.g. item turn-ins that are limited to weekly or monthly limit, and let you decide when you run how many times. The outcome would still be the same, e.g. if you run Saalus 20 times on one day, you get 20 trade-in items, but you can only trade in 7-14 of them for Blessed Cubes per week. Different approach same result.

The pro of that system is that you can play in bursts and take some time off for activities outside like e.g. parties, cinema visit, an evening with friends, hiking tours, vacations,etc. while losing out on nothing.
This also will make you feel less burdened and bored, and gives you some free time for testing/adjusting/grinding if you decide to play a little on the rest of the days after you’re done with your chores for the week/month/however long you played&stocked up in advance.

3 Likes
#44

I think an easier way to state that is:
Instead of 2 (3) dungeon runs per day, you can do 14 (21) dungeon runs per week.

I do agree, though. Having to log in every day to stay caught up with other players is something that pushes away more casual players.

1 Like
#45

Just adding daily rewards will not make a game appealing to players return to, players might just login in the game to get the rewards, then logout, and keep doing that until the player gets tired of that and stops opening the game.

#46

This was mentioned and answered in the first 5 posts of the thread.

1 Like
#47

Love this suggestion, I really liked the daily thing for Smite too, just hard to see that work out here as well. :confused: I guess the 5tp thing is already kinda similar thing, definitely not the same.

I agree with others that taking a weekly approach instead of daily would benefit this game greatly. Daily is such a chore but weekly is reasonable.

Honestly I think things like +20%-50%exp for the weekends for example could work as nice retention mechanic. It’s nothing too much which would make you feel that you lost a lot by not playing then but it also would encourage you to play during weekends. I don’t know how others feel about this but I personally like things like this. Or just some other type of silly weekend activity you could do.

Regarding content type things they could for PvE first. I would love to see a similar type of system that is used in PSO2. So basically they have these every day emergency events where you’re able to take part on these harder boss battles or tower defense type instances at specific times.
They pose more difficulty and accept more players into them than usually. They have nice rewards and you only have a specific time gap to participate and they are available to do from low to high level players and scaling accordingly.
I found it fun cause it worked in random which event would appear, all of them were fun to do with varying difficulties. It also didn’t feel forced or a chore since it was fun and it was totally fine to not do it either.
This all of course in the limits of what the game client could support but even if players counts were for example limited to 10players per event it could work well enough.
These never were any real focus of the game nor were they necessary so they really felt like a nice time off from what you’re usually up to. They were up like for half an hour or hour at specific times fee times a day.

For pvp as others have suggested here a map for open pvp would be great, or such more tbl tbh.
Also we have guild towers and what not and many maps, what do you guys feel about territory based gvg. I think it could be fun if you could own territories of maps and have alliences, wars could use quest boss style mechanic where you war on the specific map but you’re not disrupting other players normal gameplay with it. I would love to have delmore as my territory. :thinking:

Sorry to OP for going off-topic but these types of things were discussed here so wanted to give my input. I did start on topic so I hope that’s enough.
Please forgive me! :cry:

4 Likes
#48

I love that suggestion about more exp on weekends. It would be great, even if like, some random times a month or each 3 months to have a “double exp” weekend or something like this (instead of just item-based).

Territory based GvG reminds me of a jTOS video where they actually used some territory “story” to the recorded open GvG. I found it so creative.

If the system also gave you some bonuses such as increased drop rate or exp rate it could introduce some new concept, like, big fights for grind areas where other guilds could fight for farming purposes.

The bonuses could be guild-only or even to party to not make it too exclusive. Alliances could somehow share the benefits to some extent but in a way it prevents the whole server from becoming a single alliance or being abused ><

One easy way to prevent disrupting others players would be simply allowing the “neutral” status to be character based instead of guild based with something like 24 to 72 hours cooldown on the option.

Also sorry for continuing the off-topic part but I also wanted to cite TBL daily points which can work of somehow a retention mechanic, a lot of people actually does PvP for the points. The same thing could be applied to GvG along with other changes (obviously) and to Open PvP or something like that.

They could add as well something creative to get more players online but also incentive more participation on PvP regardless of gears/level/rank etc. Such as cleaning territory ownership each week or each two weeks to incentive wars.

5 Likes
#49

This plus one extra dun run on weekends, I’m sure people will love that too.

iToS’s fatal flaw in retention imo is:

    1. We do get the regular events every other week…but, there’s a lack of quality check whether the said planned events would work out well for players(looks at the pre-easy mode Survival event, I doubt even the GMs or devs can finish 3 stages of that pre nerf).
      Some bugs in events*(directs to point 2) least likely to get properly fixed before the event period ends,
      making said event more of an annoyance than entertaining.
    1. The supposedly ‘regular updates and bug fixes patch every other week’ are being held back into larger patches ranging from 1-3months of wait.
      And in that waiting period is a dead*(back to point1) ‘saltcalm before the storm’, players can only pray the incoming patch doesn’t break the game more.

Way I see it, both points into a single solution.
iToS NEEDS A GODAMN DEV TEAM OF THEIR OWN.
iToS solely relying on kr/jp devs for fixes and updates literally translates to= iToS is on life support.
I’m not saying ‘gaem is dedz’, I’m saying the kid is alive and well, the ‘parents’ is just keeping the ‘kid’ in a brain dead/vegetable like state for some ‘reasons’.

We all already agree the game is good to a certain degree, the only bad is the management.
edit: PS: did’t bother pointing out the lack of endgame PvE/PvP content or additional TP shop dress-up/pay4convenience content, cos’ even if we have that the decline will still be stronger than retention unless the main issues get solved first.(This ain’t gonna be like Elsword /Closers that got back lots of player after their release of the playable white haired robot loli)

1 Like
#50
Well...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_coma

Above all the things you’ve mentioned, hidden tweaks, minor they might seem, oh but they are literal game changers, and unexpected at the worst possible time.

1 Like
#51

Well, I guess a good way of keeping players in the game would be better events, the events actually are bad, boring, and the rewards doesn’t impress me, they look almost the same every new event.

A good event needs a mini plot, and need to give something unique to the players if they are able to end it, even if is just a hat or a outfit.

ToS world is big, so there is enough space to setup a stage.

#52

This sounds more like long-term events. A bit like Counter Strike Operations or Smite with their year-long event (Odyssey) and their quarterly events that you pay to take part in.

They’re also a good opportunity to monetise. Works very well for CSGO operations with players paying to take part in the event and earn those event badges+rewards.

I don’t think it should replace the small events that we currently get. They’re nice in their own way. But the much more organised nature of the above serious events are definitely an example that should be followed.

1 Like
#54

It’s not much harder to do an event like that, they just need a plot, like…

The player talks to a npc in Klaipeda, the npc tells that his apple shipment didn’t came yet, and tells the player to investigate, the player goes investigate and finds the npc who were supposed to bring the apples, the npc says that were attacked by demons and that they run to a desolate area, upon reaching the desolate area, the player is attacked by the demons, and at the end, a monster drops a note saying that they should bring the apples to the demon lair, the player tells the news to the npc and the npc tells the player to go to the demon lair, the player and his party enters the demon lair, faces the evil boss and gets the stolen apple crate, the player retrieves the apple crate, the npc gives the player rewards and then the player receives an apple hat alongside other items.

The end.

Certainly the events would need to have some difficulty, and be a bit longer, but at least would make the player want more and stay in the game.

#55

While this is nice as a single quest. Does it really fit the bill of “event”?

The plot-line should last several days. Perhaps instead it should be something along the lines of demons attacking an NPC’s farm, and on each of those days the leader of the attackers drops part of a map. After several days collecting the map parts the players are led to the main camp of the demons where they clear up the problem for good.

The players receive crates on the days they defend the farm.

The players receive a different crate when they use the combined map pieces to do the “attack the camp” quest.

This reminds me - There should really be a menu screen that automatically opens when first logging in for the day, giving the current game news, the current events, etc.

I’d also like a new Billboard in the towns. When selecting this billboard you get to see the whole board with lots of notices pinned to this. All notices can be clicked on to open them and read. The notices would be player-made. 1 tp for a 3day notice. 2tp for a 7day notice. 6tp for a 1 month notice.

Players could use this to advertise alchemy services. Items they’re trying to sell. Meme. Whatever. This would also be a menu option from the initial first-login popup. And from the noticeboard you could also reopen the first login popup to see the current news/etc/blah blah.

2 Likes
#56

See? Really cool ideas are flourishing now.
And the idea of the menu screen also would be cool.

Maybe before finishing a event successfully, the player
would need to do something daily, like as you said,
protect a farm, either invade the devil lair to collect
the stolen crates and other things.

And to not make things monotome, the player would
enter the mission with other players, being they in
party or not, like a kind of lobby, but not really necessary
to do in party, unless for exp and easy mode (last part not counting
the final dungeon of the event).

1 Like
#57

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