Why are there so few newcomers?

dog10250

They need to set FC for lvl's 75+ only to be able to enter. This would be a major change and enforce BH's/quests/FB's again. Course this only means once a person reaches lvl 75 they can just buy big rooms again and p lvl to 100. But at LEAST they will learn their character lvl 1-74.....

Tsukyini - Raging Tide

dog10250 wrote: »

They need to set FC for lvl's 75+ only to be able to enter. This would be a major change and enforce BH's/quests/FB's again. Course this only means once a person reaches lvl 75 they can just buy big rooms again and p lvl to 100. But at LEAST they will learn their character lvl 1-74.....

Did you forget about Oracles?b:sad

Hexalot - Dreamweaver

MsDominatrix - Heavens Tear wrote: »

There are loads of newcomers.

Just that they powerlevelled their toons and now do not know how to run an instance as a cleric... Blah blah, you get the idea.

I think that looking at starter cities isn't very accurate as well, since technically, everyone won't stay there for long. All you need is to grind to level 10, then you can purchase a flyer and head someplace else.

If they have an alt or a friend, they can get "plvl" at seaweed thieves. I actually did that for my alt.

Not true. Population levels in the starter towns is actually a very good indicator of population growth in this game. That's because everyone joining the game for the first time has to start there and most genuine newbies (particularly the casual gamers who don't want to charge zen right off the bat to get lvl 10 flyers) will spend close to 20 levels there doing the quests and grinding. Therefore if the game is healthy you would have been seeing stable populations in the starter areas as new players replace the old ones who are now ready to migrate to Archosaur.

I joined the game around December 2010 when power leveling via hypering frost/BHs/etc was already in full swing. My first toon was a Veno and I remember City of the Lost looking like a metropolis with players everywhere and cash shops cluttered all over the place. Fast foward to 2012 and what do you think it looks like now ? b:sad

The cities are ghost towns because no one new is coming in and the alts that current players make spend little more than a day or two there since they can dual log their mains to rush through the Cultis and move on.

MagicEmpress - Lost City

Yep. I started a Barb last week and got him to 19 by old fashioned grinding. I couldn't find one soul to party with for help with the mobs, and only saw lone grinders like me twice. All the others had there high level alts "grinding" for them.

I will have to pull out my lvl 99 sin to do his FB though. My sin needs rep still. b:chuckle

I do recall the old days when we had a party of 6 doing FB 19s and all were in their 20s or 30s and it was a real challenge. Or my FB 29 with a group of 4Xers doing their BHs... No demon spark sin to kill the boss in 3 seconds.

Traz - Dreamweaver

The best analysis that I could come up with is you only need 5 other friends (maybe 4 and a spouse) to do everything in this game. Everyone has multiple 100 alts with decent gear to do everything. Before maybe you needed to create 5-6 different squad make ups so (6 people a squad * 6 different make ups) to do things so the game required 36 people for you to play. Now you just need those same 6 people to shift around to different alts and you're still covered. The rest that aren't in the circle ended up quitting because they could never get anything done. This coupled with just how OP any main can get now and tank anything, you just need those same 6 people (without even switching anymore) to do all the different instances. Before you HAD to get a cleric HAD to get a barb HAD to get etc etc. Now a days 6 sins with +10 gear and you roflstomp anything. Content really needs updated.

Maybe it's a valid start to the theory of why so many are quitting (besides the obvious stuff) but I really think leveling alts and gear far above content is the root cause.

EDIT:
To the points of starter towns, you cannot go by the starter towns anymore, you have to go by snowy village. That's THE starter town now a days. There might be many new players (probably not), but they all know you go to snowy and buy heads. People do not stick around the starter towns anymore because that's not where you level.

Sylredrae - Sanctuary

It seems like people have already said most of what I intended to say, so I guess I'll add in my opinion.

At higher levels, there is plenty of competitivenes and the pressure to improve, especially at the PvP servers. That's why I like the low levels better. They don't care about your gear - just as long as you can do your job. Everyone is pretty equal in a normal bh squad up until bh79/89 - there isn't someone in godly rank 9 gear cutting through the mobs like they're nothing. There isn't someone who can rush through and kill everything in one fell swoop. Everyone has to contribute and work together; it's much more of a challenge. That's why I make low level alts to have fun with, interact with the new players and only bring in the high levels if I have to...

... Which is all the damn time! b:surrender

What I said about bh in the last paragraph was mostly true in the past, but not so much now. Now, you can get a high lvl to solo your bh for you, either because of laziness, convenience, the squad being fail or inability to find the right people. Making BH squads take time and effort that no one wants to put in because finding the right people is such a pain. That's probably why you can have say, 3 people spamming for a bh69 squad near head hunter yet no bh69 squad made. Nowdays it's hard get a decent bh squad because of all the hyper leveled people who don't know their class. For example, clerics that know you have to purify pole's debuff are getting rarer and rarer.

Simply put, it's not fun anymore to play at low and mid levels because there are so few people, and the ones you encounter are powerleveled and are clueless about what to do. I've tried to find good bh squads and squads for culti/fbs/hard quests, but it gets so hard that I have to bring in my high level toons to do everything. If it's so difficult for me to get things done on my own while playing a low lvl toon, I can imagine how hard it is for a new player to progress through the game without a high lvl to back them up or people of similar lvl to help them. Most low lvl areas are so empty, it's depressing.

It's also pretty damn hard to tell who is an alt and who is a genuinely new player without asking them. In a recent FCC squad I got in (lvl 82-92, the range where people are usually meant to FCC normally), at least three of the chars were alts, with the mains being 95+ or 100+. You could say that in the past this was true as well that high lvl alts are nothing new. However, the point is that there are so many 'newbies' that are actually alts that I can't tell the old and the new players apart. I can't assume to any extent that a low lvl char = a new player or a high lvl char = an old player anymore, because there's a medium to high chance of them being power leveled or alts. It shows how bad the 'lack of newbies' situation has gotten. I can't count the number of times when I encountered another fellow grinder/quester in a low lvl area and asked them 'are you knew to the game?' and they answer "no, my main is a [class]."

I did try to help build new faction with a friend that was geared towards helping low lvl players. It was difficult because 1) lack of joiners, 2) said joiners being inactive (either due to disinterest in the game, them actually being neglected alts, laziness, etc.) or 3) said joiners actually being toxic to the faction or greedy in some way, begging for money, items, you name it. We made the faction with the purpose of helping out low lvls... only to question whether we had recruited any low lvls to help. In the end it was a short lived project, but at least I tried, right?

I agree that something needs to be done to the game. I prefer FCC being un-enterable to characters below a certain level (say, 75+), additional content (events/instances/quests) for lower lvl characters that is worth doing with great rewards, lessen the amount of the sales, fix the glitches... pretty much the game needs an overhaul and better management. LISTEN TO FANS. DO SOMETHING. TALK TO THE PLAYERBASE. The game is salvageable but not if it continues as is. I am aware that you can't please everyone and there are limits, but you can only make PWI a better game if you at least try to listen to the fans that support it.

ViciousMinx - Dreamweaver

Word of mouth reviews are enough to turn most away. Something the ones higher up don't seem to get.

ItsAWolf - Archosaur

To the people insisting on refusing players under 75 to enter FC as a way to prevent powerleveling: It's very easy to level to 75 powerleveling in the pits with a seeker (it's pretty easy until around lvl 85ish actually). I'd even say it's easier than doing it with FC at those lvls.

So a cap on FC would do nothing to prevent powerleveling.