Questions for Tokyto_

[Softly]

Just wanted to open a thread for people to ask you things Tokyto, improve communication etc.

For me if I could only ask you one thing, I'd ask what you think and/or what you'd do about player retention:

download3.png (82.36 KiB) Viewed 2992 times

From my graph it looks like ~40% of people who play each month won't play in the subsequent month.

Good luck with your job as Player Councilor!

[FunkOff]

You can't make people want to play the best RTS ever (tm) more than they want to. Hell, I've had long periods of absence. It is what it is :-p

[Tokyto]

For me if I could only ask you one thing, I'd ask what you think and/or what you'd do about player retention:

Hey!

Thanks for this thread

The question you asked is pretty deep.

It is something thats been bugging me for a long time now. Obviously I think that we need to decrease this trend. If we let this trend continue, the number of unique players we get might drop over time. Here is my current priority list for this problem:

1) Better Client
I think that one of the reasons this is happening is user unfriendly UI of our current client. Newcomers needs to be impressed by the looks of the client they download. It needs to be simple yet packed with features. It's not even clear how to host games here. And this is why i'l try to get Downlords client up as soon as it has the core features running.

2) Tutorials
We could also use a tutorials system. Currently there isn't anything that is easy to find to help new players improve and itruduce them to FAF/FA. I have some plans for this, but it has lower priority over getting Downlords client up and my current goals.


Another thing is the new website, which should go online very soon. This probably is a very minor couse of this trend, but it would be nice to welcome newcomers with a nice webpage and not an ancient mess (sorry ZeP).

Next up is rating system. Newcomers are getting kicked from games becouse they have 0 rating. This problem should get addressed as well (Matchmaker?). This is a huge subject for different times though.

Maybe I focused too much on newcomers. But lot of this also applies to older players. On top of that a fixed ladder would be nice. I'm working on a concept how I'd imagine it, but i need more time for this to be publishable.

I hope i answered your question. If you dont agree or you think the priorities should be swaped, please tell me below, always love to get some feedback


With b̶e̶e̶t̶l̶e̶s̶ love, Tokyto_

[Evildrew]

Tokyto_

Let me say this, player retention has multiple factors, some people dont like the first impression when they play, you cant blame them for normal behavior. I suggest anyone interested in understanding the psychology a little more to read up on buyer behavior

I think some people cannot be retained by principle, so our goal is to keep the part of that number which is affected by variables we have some control over to be as low as possible and grow from that base.

Of course balance changes which have made the game unstable for people to play in is not helping at all. What sociologically has been studied is that people like stability, because even though its is enjoyable to learn the game when you start, it is not enjoyable to relearn it every 2 months when the balance terrorists change the entire game. Small steps at a time to improve the existing balance would have received much less opposition than the current idea that everything is unbalanced and the entire game needs reworking with what i call guess work.

In regards to your point:
Another thing is the new website, which should go online very soon. This probably is a very minor couse of this trend, but it would be nice to welcome newcomers with a nice webpage and not an ancient mess

I think this is needed too, and was part of my campaign, i had drawn up a basic design of what it could look like (attached). Feel free to use it if you find it helpful in any way.

As you can see on it, the welcome page for new joiners puts them in the center and give them some material build their knowledge (that investment is something that retains people). All those videos can be made on youtube in short clips. Reading stuff is boring so at entry, the use of video content is the best and established players who want to know more will be able to read more textual stuff.
The space for this is gained by putting in some features, like rotating doners comments 1 by 1 f.ex. or having small video icons which blow up when hovering over them.
Insect wall helps us see what bugs are known and being worked on, and provide the path to report a bug (communication; developers - community)
etc

Might only be an outlay idea but i think it is well conceptualized and increased the space usage which is incredibly poor on the current main page in my opinion.

[biass]

ui/ux student here
while i can appreciate the attempt to use more of the sites real-estate, the above solution is a sensory overload and will only prove to confuse and distract newcomers

ontopic: being bad doesnt stop people from playing, i don't think tutorials will improve retention
stuff like fixing rating, connection etc will, but i understand that is outside of your reach as pc
just some two cents

[Viba]

The new webpage is basically complete and will be pushed soon: https://test.faforever.com/

[Evildrew]

Viba,

I think some simple things could be changed on that website to improve it.

Screenshots
Multiplayer:
*Currently it is up to 16 players
*screenshot of names is a bad choice (it conveys no meaning to new people seeing some in game names), rather show the client (play tab) to show the games being hosted with variety of maps and highlight "create custom game" and game types (beta etc)
Co-Op
SCreenshot not conveying the message
*maybe use a screenshot of 2 ACU side by side overcharging an exp or something
Modding
+good picture
*include mention of map making somewhere
Community
*friendlist community? -_________-
-Maybe point out gamers of all kind (for inclusiveness) i.e. competitive, and causal (to use positive terms)


Other:
1 page
*not clear that you can scroll down
*looks empty, but main picture looks awesome
*Maybe some videos like in the main menu of the game on the bottom left and right of the first page could fill it up.
*Leaderboards out of date
*<$20 price guidance is not good, i bought a copy for €1.50 for my brother on Kinguin in 2014 i believe, people might look at a 10 year old game and think $20 is a bit much, we need to lower the perceived cost.
*Maybe link to the current cheapest offer for FAF, updated every week or so.

FA €2.64 right now on Kinguin, that's about $2.75
[LINK REMOVED, Gorton]

[Brutus5000]

The new webpage is basically complete and will be pushed soon: https://test.faforever.com/

Soon is the word of choice since I joined the dev team in May . But yes, we are closer than ever before.

[tatsu]

The new webpage is basically complete and will be pushed soon: https://test.faforever.com/

holy shit that is like a billion bagillion times better well done!

[Viba]

Thank these people for the website work, https://github.com/FAForever/website/gr ... ntributors

I'm only a messenger

I agree with some points EvilDrew brought up, some have already been discussed with people making the website. Like the 20$ pricetag, for me it also seems too high, I remember it took me an extra month or two before I actually bought the game from steam, after all it is an old game. If I knew I could get it for 2-3$ I would've bought it on the spot I found FAF.