Re: Severlins statements on twitch about new player experience

[Captain_Wizbang]

Severlin and staff, I was glad to hear you're addressing this issue. I have a few things to hopefully we can get some feedback and discussion here please.

I personally have been very vocal about this topic, as Ive recruited and helped hundreds of players, and the retention is a lot lower than we ALL would like to see.

Here's a link to a recent thread I made https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ght=new+player

Which I suggest using Pop-up videos for various topics.

I agree (and understand) SSG's stance on Korthos, as it has had numerous make-overs.

The "new" player selection screen is nice, and a step in the right direction. As Ive said all along, this is one of the most critical aspects of a new player's experience. I hope you take that a lot further.


My biggest suggestion, based on feedback from a lot new players, is implementing pop-up videos, better NPC's with pop-ups and "billboard" type signage with drop-down menus and pop-ups as well.

I ran a lot of tests using my 6 year cake w/ the djin to attract players, and try to help as much as I could. It worked, and worked very well. Here's some quick mock-ups based on how this works in it's basic form.




Every time I popped that djin, people ran to it. He's larger than everything else, and animated and just plain cool. So it attracted a lot of players.

Scattering these (or whatever npc) at Korthos, The Harbor, Marketplace, and any new areas you make is an easy* way to make additons to the game without breaking the bank or create any more design work than another Korthos or starter area revamp.


The use of 15-30 second videos holds the attention well, and doesnt lose the new player with going too long.

The drawback to this is any language barriers you currently have with DDO. But that is a small obstacle IMHO.

Having public "guild airships" to let players go on the witness 1st hand.

Bringing back a form of training buildings (old starter area) in Harbor.

I have other ideas, but I would like t hear from staff, and other players ideas.

My biggest hope we have some input as a community for your approaching the "new player experience"

[Captain_Wizbang]

When I ran these trials, and players asked about videos, I had a small list of player generated video links from youtube ready. It worked out really well. but not the same as a pop-up in-game

[Yokido]

My take on a few angles we could look at this from...

Simplicity reigns supreme when it comes to player retention. All successful console/PC games these days are gradually complex, not immediately complex. -Something we need to remember when we think about "reworking" (IE: Adding more stuff to the pile) the first few experiences new players have. I think we should cut back on the level of "stuff" new players have to slog through.

At the same time we need to protect our players from overbearing complexity, we need to keep their interest. I don't think we need to drastically change the game to do that. I think we need to make the actual game appear more than it does in Korthos. We could do this by giving veteran players some kind of incentive for going to Korthos for short visits, perhaps a daily "gimme" from certain NPCs already there (that new players have no idea about)? Nothing says "interest" like showing off your fully decked-out veterans. Plus vets tend to help noobs, so there's that too.

I hate the fact that new players earn most of their free P2P points in the beginning of the game, but that that's also when they're the least knowledgeable on how to spend them. We could change this for the better, perhaps the ability to "rent" packs (only once) for a much lower price than buying it? I'd like players to get to play packs before buying them. Some of my best experiences when I first started were chilling on the coat-tails of nice folks who gave me lots of free temporary passes. They helped me save points by not buying unnecessary packs. Perhaps give VIPs a weekly free universal temporary pack pass they can hand out?

I hate that we have so much good (but old)content that new players won't get to play even if they DO stay with the game. They can have the best gear in the game and be the strongest character, but have no idea on how to properly navigate the Restless Isles (as merely one example). How can this be? Our old content is arguably some of our BEST content for new players because there are different lessons/tactics to learn from each pack. People get benefits for running content the first time, such as favor and XP bonuses, but it doesn't appear to be enough of an incentive when the loot there isn't typically viable. Perhaps we could invent unbound items that can only drop the absolute (not after a TR) first time you run a quest/raid/challenge? A few new named augments could fit the bill, and/or perhaps named items (with some kind of "Explorer" or "Adventurer" theme?).

[lyrecono]

I have tried to get people into the game for at least 10 years now. Every pnp member i've had in my group has given it a try.

I've heard many complaints/ reaons on why they eventually left, it's a long list so i'll concentrate on those that left before reaching lv 5 or 17 for those that bought iconics

Visuals, it looks incredably outdated and unapealing, first impresions matter, for a tropical island, korthos lacks definition, no wild life, no animation in the npc's (aka moving or working on some kind of profession).
The Ui scales poorly into full hd, on 4k it's downright terrible. Why play ddo if you're used to modern resolutions? Even emulation boxes like the new Nes has a hdmi port for a reason.

Sound design, although i haven't played with the music on a decade, unless i'm soloing and only after people told me it was really good, many of the new players hated it. The quality of the voice chat is far lower then modern voip and is hard to make out with the games music and sound effects going. Having it stutter or hearing people who left the party an hour ago doesn't help either, it's buggy.

Playebility, a lot of newer players get a bad idea of what a class can do from the character creation, the same goes for the races, sure, ddo wiki helps, if it's correct but that info should be on the creator interface. Players don't like to get to lv 4 only to find out they made the wrong choices.
It shouldn't as kid/ console friendly as nwn but the stat blocks and descriptions could do with a make over.

Champions, this is a much heard comlaint of late, once they can run on hard, it's all over for them. Many can't complete elite even when 4 levels above the quest.
Some of my younger players told me it was most likely put in place to slow down favor farming, the same way EA and other triple A game companies use unethical and unnecessary grind to make people reach for the in game shop.


Learning curve, this was already touched upon by the op but due to the massive grind, veterans rather run among themselves on reaper, often skipping korthos with exp stones from (gold) dice rolls. Ddo isn't an easy game to get into, new players used to be guided by vets, that time is gone now.

The same goes for the few that bought iconics, thinking they could hop into lfms straight away but it turns out they are weaker then lv 1 characters(vs lv 1 content) because the content was way too hard for them, even on normal, all the eveningstar quests were killing them right, left and centre.

My advise would be:
Upgrade the chat,
Upgrade the character creator,
Improve the ui for high resolution,
Make the starter area more lively and streamlined, place some monkeys, donkeys or parrots, have shops in the marketplace, fish, wine, bread, meat, a house civis post office, they can all have shops in towns and a bit of dialoge to make the place come alive.
Where are the kids running around (at day time)?
Put in more skillchecks and multiple paths in early quests, so people get familiar with skillchecks.
Reballance the game and grind, the newer content is sometimes unplayeble for newer players

In other word, draw people in with the lowby content