Suggestions to make the server friendlier to new players

There's no denying that the server has been declining in population. There have been old players that came back and left, as well as new players coming and going. We just can't retain the newer players and it made me think; why?

I came up with a few answers and here they are:
1. The older, more seasoned and accustomed to the server that have more gear and experience just roll on these new players.
2. Its very hard for them to catch up since the players who have been playing when the server updated already have close to the best gear in-game. Plus with all the changes to HM and how everything resets in a week doesn't help them gear up any faster at all. Right now, all new players will have downtimes because of every cd and not being strong enough to compete in BGs. So waiting weeks at a time without anything to do gets old and boring fast.

I get that the whole point is to have everything as close to retail as possible but leaning more and more towards being a retail-like server takes away from the essence of a real private server.

Having said all that, let's now get into details on how we can make the server as noob friendly as possible:

1. Speed up the farming process - having cds reset every week is a little bit too long. Especially since everything is reliant on having AP to upgrade gear. By shortening it to 2 or 3 days, this will allow newer players to farm faster and catch up plus you will still have the wait-factor.

2. Put legendary gear on the webshop - having this option will give the players a choice to completely bypass having to upgrade ancient gear and spending hard-earned AP to upgrade them as opposed to using the AP to upgrade directly to ultimate.

3. Increasing BG rewards or changing them and adding loser rewards - once most of the players, if not all, now have legendary gear, they will now have, at least, a fighting chance against higher geared players in BGs. By changing BG rewards to give more ultimate etiums and adding loser rewards, we encourage players to participate in BGs without the fear of losing and not getting anything. I know Ive brought this up before. If yojre worried about it being abused, a simple fix for that is to announce the winner and loser of every BG, that way we, the players, can help you, the staff, catch who we think is abusing the system.

Winners could get something like:
5x Ultimate Etiums
5x Stigma Enchantment Stones
5x Ultimate PvP Enchantment Stones
8x Cubic bundles
15x Potions
3x Cookies - drop rate and stats

And losers could just get a lesser version of the winners' rewards:
2x Ultimate Etiums
3x Stigma Enchantment Stones
3x Ultimate PvP Enchantment Stones
5x Cubic bundles
5x Potions
1x Cookies - drop rate and stats

Open for any discussion. I dont want this thread to be closed though so please be civil.

 

Well thought through and considered. I like the proposal but I would also add more to bring people in to enjoy the PvE side of things...

Right now, farming instances and dungeons, players hardly have a reason to participate in arguably the biggest part of the game... There are more monsters, bosses, dungeons, instances, world bosses, and quests that are simply un-used or broken. It could boost participation and curb the turnover rate considerably if there were simply other ways to enjoy the downtime as you mentioned above. One simple and balanced method of doing this is by fixing the content that we already have... Fix the drop rates and loot pools of bosses to include PvP stones or PvE stones as well as some potions, stigma enchant stones, Legendary Etium and legendary manastones so that new players have a reason to pursue clearing all of the dungeons before the weekly reset. Give them a reason to play and enjoy the game as it was created and make it even better! That's the whole purpose of a private server... Not to railroad every player into PvP regardless of their gear level, experience, or willingness to do it.

 

Another addition to those ideas is allow a random drop of different cubic in "Cubic Lab Gatekeeper", cuz it's not fun trying to farm only the gold cubic. Give chance to other players that can't withstand the Battle Grounds PvP to get a better stats using cubic. I talk with some ppl thats having a hard time because they cannot go against with some ppl in Battle Grounds that's already near the best gear, some of them feel they just being burden to the group like Guaridian or Battle of Gods with low cubic stats and being under-geared really makes them disheartened towards the game.

 

Yes! I have had some people apologize to me before even starting the bg because they know they're going to be a burden. Not only in guardian but also in autogroups.

 

I haven't even joined PvP events yet because I know that i'd just be a burden to my teammates, and that's coming from someone who's been playing Aion since 2011. It's a gear based game and it's incredibly difficult to catch up if every update breaks and throttles back the speed at which you can gain items and purification materials.

EDIT: I just joined for the first time and it was just embarrassing how one sided it was. I don't think our team even got one kill, nor did we get any rewards for wasting our time in there. There's really no point for new players to participate or even try to join, which reduces the active number of players joining events, and reduces the over-all activity level.

I just don't think the developers thought through the game model when they put together this new patch, and I'm wholly unimpressed by the number of activities that are actually productive and helpful to participate in.

 

If adding the legendary gear on the website is not in line with what you want on the server then maybe adding the ancient pvp/pve stone on basic mobs drop list. This removes the burden to new people, instead of buying it using genesis crystals which they can use to get the fragments for upgrading their gear to legendary.

 

It's just a suggestion the final say are with the Administration. Also, i think Dondee know that pain of playing only a limited time because of personal/work related issues. Not all players can play daily or a long period of time to actually catch up with the others. It's true that exchanging genesis crystals for enhancement stone kinda sting with the purpose of upgrading, but that's their own way. I know ppl that don't need to exchange genesis crystals for enhancement stone, but they still can do both farming stone and genesis without any complain.

 

I was addressing my reply to the admin/noyah. Right from the start she said pve will be alive since you need to farm your gear that's why i said instead of putting the legendary gear on the webshop (if they don't want to since noyah wants to make people farm and enjoy the game) they can just add it on the drop list of the normal mobs. Nothing against Dondee's suggestion since everyone is going to benefit from it. Just saying "IF" they don't want the webshop option then maybe the "drop list" option will do.

 

I see that. Also, I'm not attacking you or any other suggestion. That's why I say the final say are with the Administration and I think we both misunderstood each other post without a proper clarification. It's true that PvE might be hard now with all the changes, but what can we do until they apply it. It's hard to actually change a live and running server already. I'm pretty sure that the staffs want to live with the exceptions and suggestion of the players. But, those things needed a proper preparation since the game is already supporting many players in real time. All we can do is pray, pray, pray and more pray they will apply a friendlier environment for all players.

 

HM is sad

 

I just recommend broadening the loot tables because here's the catch right now...

There is NO WAY of getting Ultimate Etium effectively without doing PvP. There just isn't...

You can get like, five a week if you grind out the weekly dungeons, but that's an incredible investment in time, and no one actually wants to run normal mode because it takes too long, so you can throw that option out the window. The only other ways are using Stellium, or doing PvP events. Stellium primarily comes from doing Pvp, so that rules that out as an option as well for new players, and the only people that win the PvP events in this small community are the ones that ALREADY HAVE good gear. That leaves players at the mercy of whoever has either been playing the longest, or whoever offers the most cash for the UE's which isn't at all like retail.

So instead of blocking other players from being able to do and enjoy PvP, or PvE, lets fix the availability of activities and the rewards of existing ones so that actually participating is more appealing than uninstalling.

 

.unstuck command isn't available now, hence, free win for OP players.
Just include 1 Ultimate Etium in Herelym Mine, since cd is way too long. 3-5 days.

 

One major thing that needs work on is our Battlegrounds. Because the Auto queue system will put you in a group of players with no gear, no healer, vs a fully geared group with a cleric and chanter. It's a bloodbath, and not fun for either side. People will just give up after the 1st/2nd wipe since it’s hopeless and wait for the timer to end with no rewards and some BGS you lose AP when you die so you're actually losing out. Here are some ideas for our Battleground system.

• The battleground schedule is the same mundane schedule over and over. So if you can’t play at a certain time you may never get to experience a certain BG which has certain rewards you need such as Guardians which gives ultimate etium or Suppression War which is only on the weekends. This leaves you stuck doing the same BG everyday at the same time. The BG schedule should be randomized.

• During the time when most of the population sleeps. BGS that are 6v6 such as Battle of the Gods should be reduced to 2v2 or 3v3 that way we won’t be left waiting for a queue that will never pop.

• The auto group system is not a fix to stop the unbalance that is going on in the battlegrounds. This queuing system is now just based on your luck. You can get grouped with a party with no healer and players who have no gear VS a group of fully geared players with a healer. That is just how unbalanced this system is. This just shouldn’t be happening at all. It's very frustrating and not fun for either side. To totally dominate a group with no challenge and to get destroyed where there’s nothing you can do is not fun. I was in 2v2 and I had two newbies apologizing to me, they felt SO bad they couldn’t do anything and were dying in 2 hits. There was nothing we could do. It is not fair to them to be fighting against such high geared players who they don’t stand a chance against. They get treated pretty badly by people since they’re costing them the game. I feel awful for them. New players are what make the community and playerbase grow. If we’re losing them, then we’re in a downward spiral to a dead and boring game. There was already a thread made by a newbie asking why is the community so mean here and that he is quitting. This BG system is not new player friendly.

• A custom combat rating system needs to be implemented. Each piece of gear has a combat rating, use this feature to add up the total combat rating and pair people against other players with same or near combat rating so they will be evenly matched. For example I think black desert has a similar system. You have a rating system based on your gear, and even if you don’t have it equipped and it’s just in your inventory it still calculates it so people can’t cheat the system by un-equipping and re-equipping their items.

• Another option would be to add a division system, this is already somewhat implemented in the game. I’ve seen several different divisions such as silver, platinum, gold, and master. Players should fight against others who are in their division. For example 2v2 Battleground should have 1 gold and 1 silver player vs 1 gold and 1 silver player NOT 2 gold players vs 1 silver and 1 bronze player. I personally was looking forward to seeing a Battleground ladder/ranking board added to the website or in-game since I saw the rating/division system ingame.

• Class restrictions, right now we have BGS for example where you will have a party with no healer go against a group with a cleric/chanter. How are they supposed to even have a chance to win, it's really unfair to them. Every group should have a healer or no healer. I would suggest limiting each group to have a max of 1 vandal in the party. Having a group with no vandal and having to fight against a group with 2-3 vandals is very difficult to win since vandals are really OP at the moment.

• Premade Group. One of the reasons most people play is to play with their friends, family and guildmates. It's why 99.9% of the population joins a legion. Also, some people like to play competitively, well this system forces you to play with people who you don’t know or your asmodians/elyos enemies who you can't even communicate with due to the race barrier. BUT a premade group should not go against a group full of randoms players that would be unfair. It should be balanced for example BOG 6v6. You have 2 people in a premade group que. They should fight against another group who has a 2 man premade group that qued.. So 2/4 vs 2/4.

If you add everything up I listed, you can clearly see how unbalanced the current battleground system is and very frustrating it is to the players. With these rules combined and added to the BG queuing system I believe battlegrounds will be a lot more fun and balanced.

 

Not too complex. They already break stuff trying to fix simple AP and drop rate bugs... Lets not challenge the limits of the programming capacity of the devs just yet. I'd at least like to still be able to play the game, even if everyone's basically stuck below the elite few with full UDT for now.

 

Stelliums dont come from PvP. You get more stelliums by PvEing i.e. altars and their weekly quests that I see no asmo doing. We get most of our gear by farming altar quests on alts and buying ultimate etiums with them especially now that you get stellium rewards per altar you conquer. You dont get that much stelliums from PvPing. I have 4.7k+ kills and i cant say ive gotten enough stelliums to upgrade several pieces of gear.

As for the dev comment, they're pretty skillful. They push fixes out but because they are misguided by the database theyre basing their code on, stuff comes out wrong. I think they are capable of adding custom stuff like an mmr system.

 

I was there today and the PvE you're referring to devolved into bursts of PvP which were immediately crushed, giving no chance to the opposition... So no, I disagree there. It may be possible to get a few stellium from PvE, but none that would really make any difference at the current conversion rate.

The proof is in the pudding, and I don't think it's the actual coding, I think it's the long term planning and implementation of events and activities that the devs are struggling with. Any code monkey can jump in and write up a web-hook to server code that generates a combat rating system. However, planning far ahead in advance and creating an environment that is balanced and fun for new AND existing players alike take more skill and attentiveness. I think the developers are lacking in this area, and hopefully your ideas will be taken into consideration because I feel you are much more aware of the situation than they are.

 

I'm really confused with the things you said, but I get that everyone is sympathizing with the newbies. Yes, yes... but as what as I have observed, I think you're worried on how you get teammates on battlegrounds and also suggesting in a way about pre-made groups.

 

It won't ever happen either way. The method she suggested could be easily manipulated and also the implementation of the combat rating feature would be too big a project. Not only could the system be manipulated, it would also severely impact que times and might keep lots of people from getting a match at all. I don't think it's a bad idea if done correctly, but right now we just don't have the player base to implement that kind of a system.

 

And it would be more fun that way. Having an asmo alliance to fight against when taking altars, but no, asmos know we take ALL altars when they go vulnerable so they hop on elyos and join our alliance instead of taking their own on their mains. Thus why i said its more PvE than PvP. However, weekly altar quests are PvE and they give 16-20 stelliums.

The devs are capable and i fully believe that. I know it looks bad right now but it is because there is a mismatch on server files compared to their test server. So when they test stuff out on their test server and it works, when they apply it on the actual server, it breaks. This artur guy can be a goofball at times but he and his team can do it.

 

People enjoy playing with their friends and guildmates, maybe you enjoy playing solo which is fine, each to their own and hence why there still is solo queue for people like you.

That is up for the devs to decide if it's too big of a project. I just listed my ideas that I came up with, I am sure there are different methods to balance the queue system that I didn't think of. Right now we just have auto queue and it's not doing much.

We will never have the player base if we don't do anything. Like you said there is no point for new players to join BGS yet they need the rewards the most...BGS give enchantment stones, transformation scrolls, pvp materials, and pots. I would rather wait 10 minutes or have no que than have to fight someone who doesn't stand a chance against me and dies in two hits. It's not fun at all, and it just feels bad killing them.

 

that's why u suggest premade groups. ok. not gonna happen.