[PRP] Player Retention Program - Overview

Game Discussion Levelling and Economy
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EDIT: Could a moderator please move this to the game discussion subforum? I failed to notice in time.

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Hello fellow pilots :012j:

 

I decided to get slightly invested in the development of Star Conflict. Localization work aside, I want to share my thoughts on the things that I consider the major factors why people leave the game. I do that because I think Star Conflict has alot more potential than is currently used.

 

 

  1. Player retention? What is that and why are you bothering me with it?

Player retention is a common metric in game development. It is one of the many server-side statistics and means “how many people keep playing”. Or, if you put it in a slightly different wording: “How many people leave, when do they leave, and why?”

 

Now why am I making such a fuss about player retention?

Because it’s one of the most important indicators for the health of an online game. If many people leave the game quickly, the game will die quickly. If more people join in than people leaving, the community is growing, which is good for both the game users and the game makers. A good game is a win-win. And believe it or not, I want to make the game makers rich by giving us a great game. And player retention is one of the best indicators for identifying and fixing problems.

 

 

  1. You mentioned a “program”?

The Player Retention Program (PRP) is a community project that aims to improve the game’s ability to keep people in the game.

 

Developers are welcome, of course :slight_smile:

The plan is to dicuss various topics that are related to player retention and preferably come up with ideas to raise it. This is the first in a series of articles/threads. More will follow, each one talking about a specific aspect or a certain mechanic of the game in regards to player retention (see topic list below).

As a first step I encourage everyone to drop their general thoughts about this program, as well as suggesting categories/topics for further articles, written by me or anyone who feels like writing.

 

As a community project, the PRP relies on people from the community (duh). If you can help us by translating PRP articles to another language and post it on the corresponding subforum, please give us a quick notification, so we know what languages are supported.

 

 

  1. So you think you know better?

No, and to be honest, I think you don’t either. With public products like online games, there are always many voices screaming at the creators. And most of us don’t know xxxx, but will tell everyone how everything is supposed to be all day long. It’s like sports fans and sports players - there is a good reason why one of them is watching while the other one is playing.

But of course nobody is perfect. One of the greatest advantages of humans is our collective intelligence. And through that we can achieve alot more than any individual or small group alone. That’s why forums like this one are important to have.

Here is what I bring to the table:

  • experienced software developer (mostly application development with a bit of game deveolpment, university degree in math and computer sciences)
  • heavy focus on quality assurance (including things like usability) and teaching
  • 20+ years gaming experience
  • 10+ years of analysing games (as a hobby, I just find it fascinating)
  • 10+ years of analysing humans (another hobby)

I spent some time on analytic stuff. That doesn’t mean I’m good at it, but it does mean that I’ve seen a couple things here and there when it comes to human-machine-interfaces, with video games being my favourite ones. How competent that makes me regarding the PRP, we’ll see.

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PRP - Topic List

  1. (not determined yet)

 

Further topic ideas:

  • player progression (rank system)
  • player interaction
  • UI usability and consistency
  • game modes and matchmaking
  • ingame communication
  • endgame content design
  • competitive gaming
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  1. Target market determination

  2. Language barriers between the two main communities

  3. Lack of social functions: no way for beginners to benefit from players who have been playing for a long time, and few benefits to joining corps.

  4. Lack of end-game content apart from the secret project ships that requires ridiculous PVE grind.

  5. Slow reactivity to game-breaking problems, for example the numerous exploits in the dreadnoughts gamemode or scatter gun problem with balance and causing FPS drop, that wasn’t fixed for two weeks because they were on holiday.

4

Could you add a sentence or two to your first point regarding target market determination? Do you mean the existance of the different major game modes and the problems that come with it?

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  1. Lack of end-game content apart from the secret project ships that requires ridiculous PVE grind.

 

careful what you whish for :slight_smile: it’s not like there isn’t much content in endgame nobody really uses to its full potential. if i read this, i could think, you mean, fixing this would be even more ships, or more gamemodes stuck to the end.

I would still rather object to the missing loot drops in the main game modes (aka pvp), and the sheer amount of lazy problem solutions, where you ask yourself, every now and then, did really nobody in their whole team expect THAT* to backfire - which over time removes trust between player and producer.

 

*) with that i mean decisions which historically were terribad facepalm solutions. do i really need to list all those? take “In game” social functionality “expansion” or any “swift” action taken against “abuse”…

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Could you add a sentence or two to your first point regarding target market determination? Do you mean the existance of the different major game modes and the problems that come with it?

 

It’s kinda linked to the second point actually. There is a huge Russian community, a large EU community, a small US community and bits of others. Is this actually what the devs want? Why are certain pieces of information and events only organised for the Russian community? The latest being the streams before destroyers that we would have had no idea about had someone not gone to read the Russian forum. There was also a tournament organised just for Russian corps some time ago by an official tournament organiser. The Americans are constantly complaining here on the forum about servers and lack of playerbase in their timezone. Now maybe its just because they are being the loudest, but maybe it’s also because the devs do not care about the American market so much, unlike other games.

 

So my point is basically for them to clearly define who they want in their game, once and for all, and take action on this. Their marketing department, even if it is just one guy, is being rather lazy at the moment in my opinion. Giving a free t2 premium ship via a gaming website is nice, but not sufficient…

 

 

careful what you whish for :slight_smile: it’s not like there isn’t much content in endgame nobody really uses to its full potential. if i read this, i could think, you mean, fixing this would be even more ships, or more gamemodes stuck to the end.

I would still rather object to the missing loot drops in the main game modes (aka pvp), and the sheer amount of lazy problem solutions, where you ask yourself, every now and then, did really nobody in their whole team expect THAT* to backfire - which over time removes trust between player and producer.

 

*) with that i mean decisions which historically were terribad facepalm solutions. do i really need to list all those? take “In game” social functionality “expansion” or any “swift” action taken against “abuse”…

 

Sorry, I need to rephrase that, yes. There is lots of supposedly end-game content, but it is just a mess.

  • Leagues - boring, repetitive and restraining (limited squad invites, no corp identity)

  • Dreadnoughts - no t5 still, campy gamemode that encourages defensive play (unless you really have an excellent wing vs a bad wing in which case you can push), too much preparation and waiting time, too many exploits that make it ridiculous.

  • t5 PVP - the only part that counts as viable end-game content, soon to be destroyed by rank 14 destroyers if nothing changes, no squadplay at all, tier rushers with only one ship that die straight away in ctb

  • spec ops - hard to put together a wing, good if you like PVE, otherwise no.

  • open space - boring mono missions, no negative karma missions, really bad loot, no reason to squad up to do harder missions or get better rewards

  • weekend tournaments - very good, but only t3 again.

 

There. Those are the reasons “high-end” player retention fails.

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Squadding is the biggest killer for me. It is so hard just to play with friends, and playing single player PvP gets old fast.

8

Would be nice if there was a site that allowed matchmaking with a reputation system so players could find other players for tourney/spec ops/PvE runs.

 

The matchmaking side will allow players that want to do PvE runs and need say… an LRF for dps (instead of random scrubs with tacklers or ecms). This kind of system could apply to tourney etc.

 

To make squading easier, the reputation system is to stop players “joining” as one ship but “playing” as another and also to punish players that screw around.

 

Even with a small playerbase the system could be used to schedule a match at a certain time.

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Would be nice if there was a site that allowed matchmaking with a reputation system so players could find other players for tourney/spec ops/PvE runs.

 

The matchmaking side will allow players that want to do PvE runs and need say… an LRF for dps (instead of random scrubs with tacklers or ecms). This kind of system could apply to tourney etc.

 

To make squading easier, the reputation system is to stop players “joining” as one ship but “playing” as another and also to punish players that screw around.

 

Even with a small playerbase the system could be used to schedule a match at a certain time.

 

Just start a thread here in the forums :wink:

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I have:

[http://forum.star-conflict.com/index.php?/topic/29664-t3-spec-ops-group-eu-timezone-apply-here/](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/29664-t3-spec-ops-group-eu-timezone-apply-here/)

11

++

Mill pretty much nailed it, imo.

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It’s kinda linked to the second point actually. There is a huge Russian community, a large EU community, a small US community and bits of others. Is this actually what the devs want? Why are certain pieces of information and events only organised for the Russian community? The latest being the streams before destroyers that we would have had no idea about had someone not gone to read the Russian forum. There was also a tournament organised just for Russian corps some time ago by an official tournament organiser. The Americans are constantly complaining here on the forum about servers and lack of playerbase in their timezone. Now maybe its just because they are being the loudest, but maybe it’s also because the devs do not care about the American market so much, unlike other games.

 

 

Well Kosty confirmed yesterday that RU:EU community is at 10:1. Developers are just focusing on bigger market.

So what RU community has what EU doesnt?

  • Exclusive tournaments with high rewards

  • “training sessions” with hundreds of thousands of free synergy as rewards

  • streaming about new things with lottery (5-10 tickets distributed around viewers, worth 500GS)

  • more updates and informations (constant updates about League results)

etc.

13

Yeah like you needed a confirmation on that, really?

In any case, as much as those events are not directly targeted at English speaking pilots, EU players are aware of such events and take advantage of them, participating in majority of those. Be it “exclusive tournaments” or mere streams. Integration of Ru and En speaking players in that time zones is pretty high, so the awareness of such events is pretty spread out.

On a counterparty NA players, as much as they are aware of things, are incapable of participating due to 10 hours difference in time zones, and we are truly getting shafted, so yeah, dont act like you guys are having it bad over there, you have it pretty darn good.

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Kosty, I am not complaining, just informing the rest of EU community about that. Don’t be so negative. I love the game and the way it’s progressing, it helps me to develop myself. And please, in this topic we are trying to figure out what to do to help player base grow. And dunno about that pretty high integration, remember though about the moment I shared info about RU competitions  with my friends, they were shocked. So maybe NASA wasn’t a good example of that integration. Or OWL, POL, ZET and few others I asked. 

15

You want a topic? How about corporate transparency.

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Again I fail to see the relevance of topics like these when taking into account how these developers respond to ANYTHING on these forums. To improve the game, it would take Dev cooperation, which is absolutely not going to happen from what I’ve seen.

17

Again I fail to see the relevance of topics like these when taking into account how these developers respond to ANYTHING on these forums. To improve the game, it would take Dev cooperation, which is absolutely not going to happen from what I’ve seen.

Buthurt is strong in this one.

18

Again I fail to see the relevance of topics like these when taking into account how these developers respond to ANYTHING on these forums. To improve the game, it would take Dev cooperation, which is absolutely not going to happen from what I’ve seen.

Existance of our private conversation with me means that we cares. So, not true at all.