I wanna know - why would you consider leaving FAF? I'm talking about new players leaving, not older players.
FAF has a big problem retaining new players. We actually get a decent stream of new players in all of the time but we lose them quickly - 90% of new FAF players will be gone after 2 years. And for this reason that I have not spent any time making FAF ads (like I said I would in my promo councilor application) or doing serious work on the website. The best way to help FAF grow is to retain players.
So why do we have so many players leave? Well it's hard to know for sure but there are some obvious things to try:
- experience for new ladder players was demoralizing (getting matched against 1300 rated players etc)
- toxic and abusive players
- get crushed in team games
- steep learning curve
- lobby simulator
I think what would be good for FAF is to have some sort of "kindergarden" process where new players are babied for a while - their experience unfolds in such a way that they have positive experiences. So for example they could only match with other new people for a while, or they have to be able to be Sorian Rush AI once before they can unlock the rest of the game. Or there are dedicated helpers who can join the kindergarden games to offer advice. Or there are dedicated noob games automatically hosted, where you cant join unless you are in kindergarden. Or we could give them a properly organized training course, set their expectations. You need to be able to do this this this before you can expect to compete on Setons. Or we could put them in the kindergarden discord. Or we could put them in a same-language discord where they can voice-chat to people in their own language. Or we could auto enrol them into some clan. And you can skip the whole kindergarden process if you want. The idea is that we are trying to create an early positive experience to overcome the pain points.
TMM was meant to improve a lot of the pain around getting games so I'm interested in seeing if that helps at all (although I might have to wait 2 years...)
So does anyone have any ideas how we can retain our new players?
p.s. I don't want to have big conversations about poor balance choices or some such - I don't think that is a big factor in retention of new players, that is for disgruntled pros.
EDIT:
Hey guys - yes I am very interested in hearing what the newer players have to say. Please voice your opinion and just don't worry about it when people debate you -> some of us are keen to hear what you think. Don't be discouraged just because other people don't agree. I made this thread to hear what YOU think, this is your thread! Now go nuts.
Edit: FAF is actually growing overall. I don't mean to give the impression that we are declining in numbers overall. Eg:
https://forum.faforever.com/topic/287/is-faf-growing
I just mean that we are losing lots of our new players, and I want to keep a much higher % of them.