We know you have a problem keeping players. Dwindling different house names, more open land, and people bailing for other games are evidence of this.
If you want to keep people - reward them.
"How? What do I need to change to keep players? What on earth could I do to keep making money?!" you might ask.
Well, simply put - treat your players like players instead of walking wallets.
Here is a list, in no apparent order, that help keep players playing, keep money in your wallets, and help people get off their feet making the new game experience easier and friendlier.
BEWARE - THIS IS A LONG-ISH READ. DO NOT SAY I DID NOT WARN YOU.
1: Change Regrading so that regrade charms are guaranteed (to Celestial) and regrade charm values are the default values. Regrading is a large turn-off. Tweaking the numbers will keep players from feeling miserable and terrified.
"But we'll lose money!" "But the gold needs go go somewhere!" "But we don't want players running around in all Mythic armor!"
Then don't put regrade charms in at all. Or don't make mythic armor a goal. You'll gain more money if you make regrade charms as above because people will be more inclined to use them - A guaranteed success is a biiiig draw.
2: Make login rewards RNG boxes that include 'out of game' items - 25%, 50%, 65% off credits coupons at varying rarities, credits, regrade charms/workers pots - things that are semi-valuable to most players. You don't want to give someone who never farms carrots/blueberries if they want ship components, and you don't want to give someone without a boat a rudder design.
"But then players won't buy things from the store!" "We'll lose money on credits!" "We'll flood the market with things and devalue them!"
Then make them bind on pickup items. And you won't lose money - you'll make more money. If I have a 50% off coupon, and was only planning on spending 20$, I'll spend the extra 5$ to get 50$ worth of credits. It's psychology proven to work in other games.
3: More loyalty for consecutive logins.
"But that rewards players who play longer more!"
Yes. And it should. You want to make the players who play the game feel /better/ about it. Make your players happy, they'll want to stay longer, play more.
4: Increase drop rate of certain items. Problem items like materials required for crafting things that are, for all intents and purposes mandatory to fight - ( Synthesis Crystals anyone? Brine flakes? God I have terrible luck with Brine Flakes.)
"But then people won't grind the content as much" "But then it devalues the armor!"
Yes and? This is a problem how? Grinding through content as a way to keep players is a poor way to keep players. Players want to fight. We want to be on the sea. We want to at least feel competitive if we need to (for those of us who would rather play Care-Bear routes). As for the devaluing armor thoughts - No. The armor is mandatory. If I need to put 400 hours into the game to get armor that lets me /try/ and fight someone else, I'm just not going to fight someone else, and then they get to do things uncontested, leading the rest of my faction to have fewer and fewer men to fight as more and more of us gain that kind of mentality.
5: Monthly events. Monthly, 3 day long events on weekends - with emails that go out BEFORE the Event goes live please.
"Why?" "It just gets in the way!" "But that's effort on our coders"
It doesn't need to be a complex event. Have a contest for who can find the highest point in the game and screenshot it. Have a contest for who can race from the Southern part of the Halcyona gulf to Auroria the fastest in an all-bets-are-off and anything-goes type showdown - just some kind of generic quest that gives you the starting area for the competition. Simple, fun things. Ask your interns for ideas.
6: Remove the level grind. Just seriously remove it.
"But how will we keep players playing if there's no grind!" "But if players can get to level 55 easily where's the sense of accomplishment!"
I'm not saying make it easy to get to 55. I'm saying remove the level grind. There are multiple ways to do this. One such way is to make it so the content they want to do isn't behind level caps - seabugs being level 35 again would do so (Jellyfish stay at 50 or get bumped to 55 though, so we have some danger). 30 feels like where the game is balanced around trying to branch out and do things - it's where we get land. So make it faster to get to 30 if you plow through the quests. 55 should be something of an accomplishment, but not this abhorrent grind it is now. Admittedly you have been doing things on this front - growthstones are wonderful ways to counteract this. So, good on you Trion!
7: Separate pet inventory.
This is fairly simple, yet helps SO much with limited inventory space. Have pets take up 0 inventory space and instead be in a separate 'pouch' of some kind. If you want to earn money, have smaller 'pet pouch expansion scrolls' for decent credit prices. Say you can only hold ... 5 pets? (2 mounts, 2 battle pets, and a spare) normally, and each expansion adds 1.
Now, admittedly, all of these may be a little overkill, though I did try and balance them so they could all be implemented together.
Trion, I know you don't make the game, and I know you want to keep players and keep making money.
Please, for us people who enjoy the game but just keep getting shafted by.. really bad decisions higher up, present these to XL, and try and get them to let you have them. You'll have a happier playerbase.
Disclaimer - yes I realize some of these are from other games. That's the point of game design. Look at other games for ideas and solutions that are successful, and look at why and how that makes them so. NEVER EVER Just take an idea point for point and say "This works so let's use it". Figure out /why/ it works, tweak it so it still works in your game, and /test/ it.
