Suggestion for new player acquisition and retention

Feel free to offer a suggestion, other than go fornicate with myself.

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My suggestion would be to balance your idea more, because you’ve come into the forum, which is filled largely with older players who still get value from the game and are basically dismissing any concerns anyone has, because oldfer players don’t matter. Only chasing new players matters, and that’s wrong.

CCP has been doing that, and they’ve gone down the route in the OP, so the only thing is about balance. And in that time, we’ve still seen numbers decline.

Not caring about the existing customer base is a sure way to continue decline of the community, when in reality, existing customers who already invest money in the game, are the easiest target to continue to get to invest money in the game.

Hence, there should be a balance and just shifting it further away from the things that made people fall in love with the game in the past doesn’t solve any problem.

You’ve certianly not provided any good argument (backed by any sort of analysis beyond feels), that this will work.

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To recap, all I’ve suggested is bring back event boosters that were given out in 2018 to all players, but limit them to new players, Loosen the injector falloff pre 100m sp, and make skilling spree available all year for everyone under 100m sp.
Insulting me doesn’t address those requested changes.

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There’s been plenty of addressing above and if you don’t want to be insulted, perhaps don’t insult those you are trying to communicate with.

Just a suggestion.

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No ■■■■!

And that’s where retention went wrong for eve. All the wealth equalising and engaging activities that could be done by poorer and low skill players were nerfed or automated.

Pretty much as Kezrai_Charzai says. We don’t need to fast track noobs into higher content and break the game even more whilst we do it. We simply need to stop nerfing player ingenuity and provide new players content at a new player level.

@CCP And by new player content i don’t mean more boring arse overpaid grindy themepark ■■■■! I mean small gang pvp and ways to mess with other players.

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I would love to discuss balancing my suggestions more. What, in your opinion, would help with that?
I’m not sure what could be offered to keep new players that would be of benefit to veteran players. I am certainly open to suggestions, and I would love to include them in my original post.
Perhaps keeping skilling spree for everyone all year would be better?

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No. How does that address at all the concern I raised above. Specifically this:

This has been a significant factor in player long term retention for many players, because the level of attachment to our game alter egos has been diminished. We can just roll a new one anytime. No need to spend time training new alts anymore. Just inject into them and extract out when we want. So no need to stay and play. Just go and come back anytime and spin up a new character.

So you have to be prepared, with the suggestion in the OP to accept that attachment to the game at a player-character level means nothing and to discard it all together.

If you do so, how many existing players are going to leave the game?
Is that balanced by the number of new players that will stay?
How long should CCP target to retain players for? Because if you decide that long term retention doesn’t matter, then you have to churn the community continuously. So how long is long enough in you view?

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My counter to that is younger players don’t typically get as attached to character alter ego’s as much as our, or older generations do. While it is sad that the gaming world has changed in that regard, it’s simply an aspect that we have to accept.
People already extract character to make new ones. There is a bazaar full of old characters ready to be sold to new players. CCP made that possible and legal long before many other MMO’s adopted a similar viewpoint.
I’m not sure if that would drive current players away, and if it would I would feel extremely sad for it. I value a lot of the older players, and CCP does as well. They made the community I enjoy so much, and the events that drew me to this game in the first place.
I would think the aim is to keep players for as long as possible, but that is also keeping in mind that younger players pick new games almost monthly. CCP has tried to get those players into this world many times, with other iterations of the game. However, they failed to realize that newer players aren’t in it for the multi-year training requirements. That’s why those other games failed, even with spectacular content.
This is certainly a niche game and community, but it must become less niche if it’s to survive.
I would hope that the current content and plans for content would keep people in the long-term, while lowering the bar for entry into higher end content. I do like the previous suggestion for additional lower end content as well.
I would also say that for such a long lived game, the npc storyline hasn’t gone very far. Perhaps addressing that would help retain players that come in as well. I was a huge lore nerd for WoW, and published years of videos regarding that lore, as it evolved.

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Please elaborate on where player ingenuity has been nerfed. I’ve only been playing about a year and a half, so I don’t have as much experience with the history of this game.

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You can start by taking out the trash in high sec that keeps killing the drive of new players to play the game instead of trying to change it. Post above happens a lot more than people realize. Go to rookie chat for a couple of weeks and you’ll see what I mean.

:red_circle:

The overwhelming reason for them to burn out is because they lack patience and the necessary common sense that things do not happen immediately, especially not complex and far-reaching things. Those people are not a loss for EVE, they are a gain by virtue of not being able to accelerate the downfall of EVE even more.

That is hardly true. VVV, for instance, came in as part of Chinese wave, struck a deal with sov holders for gaining sov and from there trained, learned and grew into a powerhouse that regularly outforms existing groups. They have dedication and proper leadership.

I have never used my credit card to get into a BS just a few weeks into my EVE career. I have worked up my way through the agents and mission levels, I had been enjoying running all sorts of missions to earn ISK, standings and knowledge. When I finally got into my Abaddon, it felt like a real accomplishment and I was very proud of myself.

What you want is not to help newbies but accelerate their burn out. You want to take away these rewards of patience and character development and replace them with cheap, instant gratification generic reward spam like in so many other games. What you want is not to help newbies; you want to drive them away faster.

That quote is not a valid suggestion. It is already part of the game in the shape of Community Fittings. These fittings are readily available in the fitting window and can be used by hours old characters.

And this is exactly the issue. EVE is not meant for super casual crap like that. It is meant to build up your reputation, experience a long life in the game’s universe, do all sorts of things over time, live through various stages of ups and downs. If that is not for you or any newbie, their loss won’t be a negative hit for EVE. They are simply not made for what EVE is about.

Off the top of my head?

Ninja salvaging and can flipping - nerfed by suspect status and ship swapping via maintenance bay changes.

Suicide ganking - nerfed in more ways than can be described here.

New bro salvaging - automated by the mtu.

Awoxing - nerfed by corp friendly fire toggle.

Wardecs - nerfed lots as well.

Hunting specific players - nerfed watchlists.

Neutral support - now a criminal act.

Margin trading scam - just been made impossible.

Bumping - nerfed by timer.

Cloaky camping cyno nerf.

All of the above are tools that players could use to compete with or be a danger to other players. You’ll notice that none of them are skill intensive or particularly expensive to do (or at least they weren’t) so they were available to noobs and vets alike. But as time has passed ccp have gradually taken away or made more difficult the options available to players, but especially new players, to compete with vets…except by farming or using RL money for boosts.

Farming and ‘monetisation’ have seemed to be the primary focus of ccp for 7 years or so now. And it has not gone well.

In game economy has gone to pot. Injectors were sold as being an sp sink but what we got was skill farms and instant titan and rorqual pilots to a point that ccp are now taking drastic measures to correct.

Adding alphas was just like opening the door to bots, they were supposed to increase content and be something of an unlimited free trial but what almost all of them want is to farm safely 24/7 and have even more free access…

We’ve plainly been going in the wrong direction and for a long time now…The playerbase are demoralised and totally disenchanted with ccp.

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Are you SERIOUS! That’s what 99% of what the game is about!!!

CCP has always been behind on us, the players, frantically trying trying to fix/change/remove the ■■■■■■■■ us players pull on each other.

The reasons they’re always behind is that we have more players than devs, users are somehow capable of fubarring code and game mechanics in ways no DEV could ever dream of (apart from in their nightmares), and most of the DEVs, if they even play their own game, are miners and super casuals.

It is our duty to fubar the mechanics to hell and back. Man you’re so clueless it’s just painful.

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One that’s ageist.
Two its nonsense. Roleplaying games are a huge market with under 35s atm.
Three you say youve been playing for a year and a half?
Thats basically still a new player in EvE terms.

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Isn’t this a lot? It is half of a decade of constant training. Not exactly new players here.

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Quoting part of a comment doesn’t tell the full story.

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Occasionally it is enough to reinforce a point though :laughing:

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…you’re an idiot. This is not a “short-term” game. It is also incredibly selfish to suggest that someone who starts the game should be able to be on the same level as someone who has played for years, in only a matter of weeks or even a few months.
If you want a game that gives you a rapid completion I suggest you piss off and find one.

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My cat could beat up your cat.

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It clearly shows and says that as a new player, they are able to quickly reach the same level as a veteran https://youtu.be/sPFII3ozSHI?t=171