What can be done to attract / keep new Players ?

MageMERC - Harshlands · September 2014

No doubt (I hope anyway) that the parent company and devs are trying to answer this very question.

Since the removal of Hypers from FC, this question has come to the fore in my mind since I had just started levelling a new archer when they were removed.

I spent the better part of an hour yesterday doing normal quests, since all my dailies were done (and as a tangent I did the BH with my main of course - I don't know if its possible to do bh59 at level now since no one answers wc to party up), and when I handed in like 8 quests I went from 74.94% to 75.02%!!!!!!!

Now imagine your a new player - with less people to party up I wonder how they get to level 100 in the first place, then lets say they see someone advertising in wc to party for FSP and they link their r9rr+12. So the newie then asks someone "How do I get that weapon?" and they get answered "That's a $3000US weapon, you work it out."

Now at about this time, the newie has finished the Goshiki chain and is about level 70 and levelling suddenly slows down to a crawl. At the same time they are starting to realize they will most likely NEVER come within a mile of being able to PVP effectively or come close to being able to PVE well. Also about this time they are starting to understand gear costs / refinement / shards.

As another tangent, I linked my +7 G 16 2 socket -int daggs the other day for FSP and told not good enough!!!!!

At this point or even earlier the newies quit. I have helped many, many newies with fb's over the last couple months and they always friend me and after about 1-2 months I never see them log in again.

This is what the parent company and devs have to combat in terms of keeping players and I don't really see how they can do it. It was a good start with the yellow gears as BH drops and the NW buff but they isn't enough.

I honestly think players REALLY REALLY want to see themselves levelling and without FC and with quests as they are, people just don't want to spend a week getting up one level and they just get disillusioned and give up.

That's my 2 cents for now anyway.

Xainou - Sanctuary · September 2014

MageMERC - Harshlands wrote: »

No doubt (I hope anyway) that the parent company and devs are trying to answer this very question.

The parent company is in China and didn't ever have hypers in FCC or r9 to buy with cash.

Who knows, maybe we're just another franchise for them.

Fail_BM - Raging Tide · September 2014

When I saw FC hypers being disabled I saw a lot of people saying it was the right move, how it is better for the servers. However I see RT is still empty (maybe with less people than before), and 75+ characters strugling to reach next lvl (notice I didn't say lvl 100). I have been wondering if "new" players will look very slow lvl speed as something attractive on this game, knowing a lot of games out there have decent lvling methods.

To remove FC was right, but it was too early. They had to remove it after the expansion, when the new dailies -which we still don't know if they are going to be that good- are comming to balance the exp problem.

How I see it, the company is not trying to attract new players, but keep what they have, somehow.

People asking for weapons for FSP are the same who were asking fot 5 APS/+7 weapons/sage venos for nirvana, you should know that kind of cancer cannot be removed from this game.

laiwaisan · September 2014

DUH that's easy bring back astral domain the beginner area and in there make sure earing time is disabled because it takes awhile to farm flyers and mounts only reason i bought account stash and for gods sake take out that kissing quest omg b:kiss

also earning time should reset after 2-3 quests completed whether its daily or not,

other day a monster attacked me on a path i ran and ran finaly i just 1 hit killed it was shoked to see it effected my earning time seriously?

DeffyNature - Archosaur · September 2014

Well, the info about the new expansion indicates new dailies for lower level players, a new instance for them to farm gear, new Bhs for lvl 80s and 90s and a new starter area with lots of quests as well.
We'll have to wait and see exactly how effective they'll be, but all sounds promising for now.

Fail_BM - Raging Tide · September 2014

Xainou - Sanctuary wrote: »

Tother day a monster attacked me on a path i ran and ran finaly i just 1 hit killed it was shoked to see it effected my earning time seriously?

Because you killed it, that is how it worksb:surrender

ovenusarmanio · September 2014

Advertise the upcoming expansion.

Introduce a coin sink. Give people something in-game that would give them a reason to change gold into coins. Perhaps an NPC that sold certain items outright. Which helps the economy. Everyone profits from that including new players who will be able to afford things like crab meat more easily.

Put something valuable in the game that would make people want to change gold into coins.

Advertise.

Revamp the 80+ quests so that people can get from 80 to 100 in a more reasonable time frame.

Create a legacy version of the older instances that will allow high levels and low levels interact equally. Make it well worth running for both. Make it so it's not profitable to hog it all for yourself and so you'd take anyone.

Advertise.

bloodedone87 · September 2014

There will be no new thing to attract and keep new players even with this new expansion. Heck, even some old players will leave. Yes new expansion will bring new classes and new things to do but we will get bored of those like we did get bored of every new thing they brought.
Most of the ppl that are playing now are doing cause they cant let go. They made friend and worked so hard on their chars so they just cant quit.

tmllover · September 2014

Well they can recruit/advertise or whatever all they want.
Once a new player sees the work that goes into getting competitive (on pvp servers anyway), they will log off and never click play again.

You have to lvl you char to 100+, then do it again. Then do it again.
You have to spend thousands of real dollars for gear. Farming now isn't what it used to be(especially since they will be making all dq items worth 1 coin with new expansion). The economy is destroyed. The rich are hoarding their riches.
Once they see all the flaws with the game (quests dont work, numerous glitches, rubber banding, almost non-existant support staff, etc..) it will likely turn them away as well.

You want new players? Make everyone start fresh. Make those heavy CSers dump money into the new classes coming out.
Fresh start is the only way to attract AND keep new players. Unless they fix everything mentioned above, will never happen. Like someone said, the only players that are still playing are the ones who have too much time and money invested into the game already, so quitting isnt an option for them.

Lolgasmic - Raging Tide · September 2014

How old is this game by now? is it 6 or 7 years? On top of that it was a half-made game before the new owners moved in....

Knowing PWE, they would just keep up a bare minimum to keep the game afloat. Just when they find the right game, they jump ship to the new one. And of course they'll third-party the hell out of it.

I know it's the same old pessimistic view of PWE, but it's hard to not be when the company proves itself to be shallow time after time again. Even when dedicated fans who play and enjoy the game for years continually support (zen) and defend the game (forums).

Honestly when I think about it. This is the wrong question. It should be 'What will it take for PWE to come to life again?' and the answer would be 'Everyone moves on'.

PWE is a Capitalist company with the sole goal of maximizing profits. They will follow the money...

And stop talking about the Devs, they came back 4+ months ago and have done exactly WHAT?

Jadsia - Lost City · September 2014

-snip-

With all the added content since FC was converted into what it is now it's easier to level in the open world with questing than ever. OP you started out asking about how to retain new players then compared your own lust to powerlevel an alt versus a new player who has never experienced the game before. They are not going to know jack about anything above their level as they progress through the game. Everything will be a 1st time for them and the last thing on their minds will be how distraught they are because they are still 7x and not kicking *** with r9rrr +12. They will be focusing on what they are supposed to do and have at the level they are.

The best way to retain new players is to return the game to what it is supposed to be. That is what PWE and PWI is doing. It took a few years for the game to deteriorate from what it was to what it is now and it is going to take some time for it to recover. It won't be immediate. I see a whole lot more low level activity going on in my server so I know that it is working.

As far as the economy s concerned PWE and PWI is incrementally restricting the amount of coins farmed from the environment. This will make them worth more. I believe if end game gear is modified to be dependent more on items from the environment than from the cash shop coin value will increase and gold prices will drop. It will also be an incentive for people to charge gold and sell to f2p people.

For the 1st time in years I see the game starting to head in the right direction.

Unknown · September 2014

This content has been removed.

opkossy · September 2014

I seem to have a knack for that. b:chuckle

Keisari - Raging Tide · September 2014

Being a neo-newbie Kitty thinks she has quite good view to today's newbieness.

Like someone already mentioned earlier in this thread, just leveling to next level has become quite a challenge already at 80s. These days there's maybe 1,5x as many BH squads compared to FC-times. Which means about one BH69 squad every 4 hours.

Though many of those saying removing FC was a good thingie to revitalise lowbie content...it didn't really do it. Actually RT has even less people playing now since nobody bothers leveling alts anymore. Half less than before content update, Kitty estimates as many seem to have quit after growing bored of playing just one class. Majority of "newbies" left are just alts of people who seriously want to try some class.

PVs...seems like it's super-hard for newbies to get full squad gathered. Though Kitty doesn't wonder since current newbies still don't do BHs to learn squadplay. As if they could. Kitty sees maybe one BH51 being gathered daily and even those have some lvl 100+ helping.

Too bad quests don't teach squadplay skills.

Kitty presumes the incoming expansion vitalises the game for a moment when many try the new classes, but after couple months population falls even further.

Sirsmokealot - Raging Tide · September 2014

Have been away from this game for about three years first thing I noticed when I logged in was how empty it is around starter towns and citys.

So I ran up to Secret Passage that place used to be heaving...which was empty it just does not give a good feel to a game when you log in to nothing.

As an old newbie I can't believe they have removed hypers from FC I don't think I know one person who has NEVER hypered FC. We was hypering years ago and it was being moaned about then people being called hyper babies etc.

Who in there right mind want's to level the old old old fashioned way in an ageing game such as this and if you was intent on doing this why did you let people get 2nd rb before removing it effectively making that gap bigger.

Who know's maybe I am talking to soon but these are my "refirst" impressions and there not good at all

Desdi - Sanctuary · September 2014

Sirsmokealot - Raging Tide wrote: »

Who in there right mind want's to level the old old old fashioned way in an ageing game such as this and if you was intent on doing this why did you let people get 2nd rb before removing it effectively making that gap bigger.

The old old old fashioned way doesn't really exist anymore. With the exception of the lvl 80+ content, the rest of the quests have been updated in addition to being able to get free charms, EXP fruits and other goodies from Lucid NPC and Questmaster NPCs. Then there's also the free rewards from the chest that give a variety of useful things.

Now we also have a lot of useful weekly codes such as Event Gold (free charms for botting, free teleport stones to make questing faster/easier), Hypers, Dreamchaser Packs (free gear 'till lvl60), VIP charms and sometimes Maiden-Kissed Chests for some free buff pills and EXP fruits.

Leveling the "old" way is better than ever before. I made a new toon on Morai server a few months ago. I was completely new to the server so I had to play like a new player and it was very enjoyable.

Now don't get me wrong, I didn't want FCC Hypering completely removed. They are at least addressing the issue (lvl80+ content) and are updating quests and adding new ways to level up in the upcoming expansion.

On topic:

Much like Venus said...

Advertising - which is something they don't seem to be doing. I think I saw somewhere a quote from the CM stating that they have no plans to advertise the game anymore, plus they've already moved to "Arc Games". PWI's no longer the flagship game.

Coin sinks - we desperately need them.

Add ways for low levels and high levels to interact with each other more.

Perhaps more events and whatnot for low levels.

Level 80+ quests and content update, which is something that we seem to be getting in the next expansion.

..but really PWE has clearly shown they don't care about supporting PWI anymore so in the end all the talking is futile. I do believe however that the expansion will attract a few players (old & new) just to try out the new classes.
In the end, I think we should just enjoy what's left of the game.

Jadsia - Lost City · September 2014

Sirsmokealot - Raging Tide wrote: »

Have been away from this game for about three years first thing I noticed when I logged in was how empty it is around starter towns and citys.

So I ran up to Secret Passage that place used to be heaving...which was empty it just does not give a good feel to a game when you log in to nothing.

As an old newbie I can't believe they have removed hypers from FC I don't think I know one person who has NEVER hypered FC. We was hypering years ago and it was being moaned about then people being called hyper babies etc.

Who in there right mind want's to level the old old old fashioned way in an ageing game such as this and if you was intent on doing this why did you let people get 2nd rb before removing it effectively making that gap bigger.

Who know's maybe I am talking to soon but these are my "refirst" impressions and there not good at all

You complain about how empty the starter areas and the rest of the low to mid level populations of the game then you complain about how the very system which enabled that situation was changed. You can't have it both ways. It's no different then people in other threads complaining about out of control inflation due to the massive influx of coin from the environment into the game and high gold prices then complaining that the devs forced earning time on our bots to prevent people from farming more coin.

Colum - Raging Tide · September 2014

I don't know, my faction members seem pretty satisfied and not too worried about leveling up. They squad for BHs, we occasionally try to form a Gamma or Delta for lower levels, if they ask how to gain experience at higher levels we tell them to complete their quests, run PV, cube, dailies etc. If they run out of things to do, they'll either log on their alts or hang out with us somewhere. I don't feel that the leveling is too hard - my psychic is reaching 100 quite fast without big effort.

opkossy · September 2014

Colum - Raging Tide wrote: »

I don't know, my faction members seem pretty satisfied and not too worried about leveling up. They squad for BHs, we occasionally try to form a Gamma or Delta for lower levels, if they ask how to gain experience at higher levels we tell them to complete their quests, run PV, cube, dailies etc. If they run out of things to do, they'll either log on their alts or hang out with us somewhere. I don't feel that the leveling is too hard - my psychic is reaching 100 quite fast without big effort.

Agreeing with this. In most of the lowbie factions I have chars scattered across, the new people... really don't know or care about most of the stuff brought up here. Especially on the PvE servers where the vast majority of them either actively dislike PvP or have no plans for taking it seriously in the slightest way. Heck, I often see them asking if they're doing something wrong til at least the mid 80s because of saying they're leveling so fast and missing quests and so on. Especially the venos who keep asking about how to have their pets keep up with them better.

But to the point of the topic, I basically agree with Venus overall. Especially about us needing advertising again. It used to be you'd see ads for PWI all over the place as far back as Rising Tide expansion. Now? Odds are if you don't already know about the game, you're only being introduced to it by friends and family in the vast majority of cases. Killing the amount of new players we actually get isn't a good start for keeping them at all.

Jadsia - Lost City · September 2014

sontzu wrote: »

Lumping the hyper/fc issue and packs together is unhelpful to the discussion; they are different facets of an overall problem, which includes other issues such as dreadful customer service, comedically bad forum maintenance, and an ever growing list of in-game glitches and bugs. In other words: Very poor management

You comment about me mentioning hyper leveling in an instance and cash shopping end game gear as being completely different issues then you talk about glitches and bugs and customer service which has nothing to do with what I said. You completely missed my point about how the game enabled players to skip over 99% of the content of the game with both cash shopped end game gear and leveling. Both of those are contributing factors as to why the vast majority of the game is an empty void because there are no low to mid level players and the economy which existed with that and both are completely relevant to this thread. Out of the 6 years I've been playing I sent in 2 tickets. I couldn't care less about the customer service because as a f2p player I hardly ever need them. And the bugs I have learned to work around like most of the others.

Are you serious? I never met a player yet who wasn't looking ahead to the next level, next gear they will get, and how it will make them compare to higher level players. The ridiculously huge gear gap is one of the primary reasons for losing newer players imo, with the difficulty of levelling non-rb toons past around 70-80 coming a close second.

As I clearly stated new players are going to progress through the game in a level appropriate manner now that FC has been fixed. They are not going to be 6x or 7x QQing about not being r9rrr +12 and not being able to kick ***. I've been at this 6 years and only recently decided to go for r9. Like everything else should be in life it's an accumulative process which takes time and effort into obtaining. As others have stated so well in other threads it's not just the goal of getting to end game which makes this game fun it's also got to be the journey to get there. It's the feeling of pride of achieving every step of the way in the challenge and it should be incremental. Growth is always an incremental thing.

You can't turn the clock back in that way. I see plenty of low level activity also, but again, retention rates are key, and they are low. The only way to reverse the effects of the past in terms of fc would be to remove all the exp and coins earned there in the past. I rather doubt that is even possible, nvm likely. In other words, this is a classic case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted

ROTFLMAO!!! No new player coming into the game is going to have a shred of an idea about FC or anything else that occurred before they logged on for the 1st time. What they are going to see is what is already here. Nothing has changed for the new player logging in for the 1st time. Everything you just stated will never affect new players and their perceptions to the game.

Too little, too late. Why is it an incentive for someone to charge gold to sell, if they get fewer coins for it? You need to examine the logic of your argument before you submit it.

How does the concept of increasing something's value by making it more rare escape you. People used to sell gold in the AH for 120K each. Sit down and think about why that was for a minute.

Agreed, it's a major turn off for new players

Your attitude is a major turn off for new players. logging into the game for the 1st time and seeing no activity in the starter areas and almost every other area on the open map is a major turn off for new players. Having end game players with such massive amounts of coin to the point the low value prices new players right out of what's left of the economy is a major turn off. All these issues are being address incrementally except for your attitude-which is a personal problem of yours to deal with.

There's just way too much content added since the day FC was reverted into t power level instance. leveling as a new character without camping FC is easier than ever. As I stated the best way to retain new players is to give them a game to play the way it was designed to be played.

Fail_BM - Raging Tide · September 2014

Refering to advertising, I am not sure if it is going to work. A lot of people is using adsblock to control the amount of advertising on the internet (I, personaly, try to block every ad I see around)and PWI's ads are not an exception.

Mahidevran - Archosaur · September 2014

I'll admit that levelling is much more easier than it was back in 2011-2012 (I started the game with Genesis expansion). All of my alts are +50 already.

It took me months to hit level 60 and I remember fangirling all over the house because I was going to get my 59 skills. Level 60 BHs (BH51) was really boring tbh, I still hate that dungeon, so it took me a while to hit 70.

After that I levelled up until to level 78 via BHs.

I left the game for a while when I was around level 75. I came back for a very short amount of time and hit level 76 and then I left again. FC was around that time but I thought it was too easy and didn't feel right to me (I was kinda naive back then lol).

And finally, I came back this August, I was level 78 and run FC for 3 days and hit 84.

I didn't do it because I was lazy but because the exp that we gain from BHs are so low and insignificant. IIRC BH1 exp only fills 8/100 of exp bar when you're +75 or something.

Then they took it away when I was level 84 and it took me 1 month to hit level 90. You can't always find PV squads (I'm not running PV for three days), even if you do, some people have no clue about their role in the squad or dungeon, sometimes they ragequit, dc, run out of pots, die and can't come back because their token is expired etc.etc.

What I am saying is, it's not that practical.

I agree with @Fail_BM
They took it away too soon. They probably knew that we are going to get this new expansion where we will have new +80 dailies and quests with increased exp. So waiting for a little time wouldn't hurt anyone.

But OK. I'll stop complaining about FC if we get the new dailies and +80 quests with increased exp because the problem is +80 level that makes the game slower.

Edit: lol I just wrote my pwi autobiography :x

Keisari - Raging Tide · September 2014

Jadsia - Lost City wrote: »

As I stated the best way to retain new players is to give them a game to play the way it was designed to be played.

You really think you know how this game ish designed to be played?b:cute

Are you going to claim people shouldn't have fist archers, APS-barbs, HA-venos or APS-sins just 'cause the developers didn't really design them that way?

Euthymius - Heavens Tear · September 2014

Keisari - Raging Tide wrote: »

You really think you know how this game ish designed to be played?b:cute

Are you going to claim people shouldn't have fist archers, APS-barbs, HA-venos or APS-sins just 'cause the developers didn't really design them that way?

The original classes might be able to use all weapons and a few different builds, but with things like skill-based debuffs, the Anti-APS shield on much of the newer content, R9.3/G16 full sets being the new "endgame", skill damage passives, and the newer classes being weapon restricted, they are swaying the way the "game is meant to be played" regarding APS/Alt builds to a degree by making them less attractive/less useful...

Its arguable that they're doing the same with leveling by disabling hypers in FF too (though that being a bit too extreme/too soon, that is another topic)

Just because they don't hard-restrict the old classes doesn't mean they couldn't phase out a certain way of playing in their updates as they've been doing. After all, those alternate builds may be doable, but the classes weren't "designed" that way considering the lack of masteries/skills to go with the likes of Fist Archers/Barbs. If they "updated" WS/TT to be anything like the newer instances, APS would pretty much be dead as we know it.

DeffyNature - Archosaur · September 2014

OPKossy wrote: »

But to the point of the topic, I basically agree with Venus overall. Especially about us needing advertising again. It used to be you'd see ads for PWI all over the place as far back as Rising Tide expansion. Now? Odds are if you don't already know about the game, you're only being introduced to it by friends and family in the vast majority of cases. Killing the amount of new players we actually get isn't a good start for keeping them at all.

I completely agree with this. I actually joined the game 4+ years ago after seeing an add in my yahoo mailbox for the new Tideborn expansion and it looked really cool.

Desdi - Sanctuary · September 2014

DeffyNature - Archosaur wrote: »

I completely agree with this. I actually joined the game 4+ years ago after seeing an add in my yahoo mailbox for the new Tideborn expansion and it looked really cool.

I found PWI through an Ad too b:chuckle

Roseary - Sanctuary · September 2014

MageMERC - Harshlands wrote: »

As another tangent, I linked my +7 G 16 2 socket -int daggs the other day for FSP and told not good enough!!!!!

I was almost taking this for a non troll post till I saw this.
GG, 10/10.

FSP is one of the new anti-aps instances.

Jadsia - Lost City · September 2014

Keisari - Raging Tide wrote: »

You really think you know how this game ish designed to be played?b:cute

Yeah. I do. With people not skipping over 99% of the game's content by camping an instance from 1 to 10x.

Are you going to claim people shouldn't have fist archers, APS-barbs, HA-venos or APS-sins just 'cause the developers didn't really design them that way?

No and what the hell does this have to do with the price of rice in China? The game has always allowed us to set stat points in any configuration we want anyway.

People playing in a level appropriate manner is how MMOs in general work. No other for profit commercial MMO out there enabled its players to skip over 99% of the game's content to achieve end game status. I find it fascinating how people refuse to realize that the downfall of this game started when the game allowed that kind of game play with hypers in FC.

LuckingFoco - Raging Tide · September 2014

Jadsia - Lost City wrote: »

People playing in a level appropriate manner is how MMOs in general work. No other for profit commercial MMO out there enabled its players to skip over 99% of the game's content to achieve end game status. I find it fascinating how people refuse to realize that the downfall of this game started when the game allowed that kind of game play with hypers in FC.

This I agree with. Prior MMOs were about the trip getting to endgame levels then enjoying endgame content not getting to endgame as fast as possible. The drawback with PWI is the lack of content updates. I do see where people complain its the same thing day in and day out except when we get an expansion.

P2P MMOs of the past had a lot of times monthly content updates which included new dungeons on a regular basis, and once or twice a year, huge land additions to explore with new mobs, weapons, armors, even more new dungeons. One of my favorite MMOs didn't even give you maps for dungeons. You had to memorize over many runs where you needed to go, and these dungeons were epic in their size. They truely were a maze. It also didn't spoon feed you levels. You worked your butt off for them.

The other thing about earlier MMOs is even at endgame everyone had for the most part the same OP items because they were either quest drops, or player manufactured. There was no free to play pay to win which in my opinion is a horrible design for MMOs. We all paid the same subscription fee and all had access to the same items in game. It just depended on time vested to attain them.

PWI is a game I love playing, don't get me wrong, it has many flaws, including rinse and repeat and a wedge between those that either can farm/merch/afford end game gear and those that can't or have little knowledge about economics and or are exclusively free to play players. But even with that as a PvE player I still enjoy logging in whenever I can and playing the game and socializing with faction members and friends.

As for keeping new players, as long as they don't have the mentality that they have to be endgame overnight, I don't think most care about the length of time it takes to level to 100 at least. They want to explore, meet people, and have fun diving into an interesting MMO world. But they also want to find other players around the same level to explore with. A lot of players that want to be endgame levels as soon as possible tend to also be the shortest lived account holders. They come in, steamroll content or in PWIs case, FC hyper to 100, get bored with dailies and PvP and move on to the next MMO that affords them the ability of being endgame in a month. Those type of players also tend to be trolls and don't care about other players. They have the "me" mentality and "what can you give me now!?" mantra.

When it comes to finding new players, that are going to stick around, such as myself, I found it by searching free to play MMO. There were no ads that I recall from four and a half years ago, or I never noticed them . I found it because I had heard about free to play MMOs and at the time didn't have the time to pay a subscription fee for a game I wouldn't be able to play often. I did a search, checked out videos, tried a few and found PWI to be closest to the original MMOs I played years ago in look, feel, gameplay, etc. I like the road travelled to get to endgame. Endgame is nice and all, but its just the icing on an otherwise not utilized cake.

Slivaf - Dreamweaver · September 2014

Fail_BM - Raging Tide wrote: »

Refering to advertising, I am not sure if it is going to work. A lot of people is using adsblock to control the amount of advertising on the internet (I, personaly, try to block every ad I see around)and PWI's ads are not an exception.

^ This, not to mention it doesn't address the issue with people staying once they're here. Granted no solution is going to do both in one fell swoop.

Still as I am sure people are aware advertising costs money, ergo I think they would be much better off trying to find a way to get as many people to stay around as possible/start spending cash (making us 'happy' to spend cash, STOP going after as much money from your whales as you possibly can get) if you can make 5000 people happy to spend 10$ a month, that would be 50k per month, instead of getting 1 person to spend 10k randomly/every-time something new and overpowered comes out. You will be making more money/keeping more people around.

What they're doing now is something like T H I S video describes:

Catering to the whales, and all of the 'lowbies'/weak ones are leaving in droves because its so difficult to compete against those who just one shot left and right.

EDIT: As for the fc bit:

I think its more along the lines of too little too late, people got too use to it, and without a good strong alternative for it, people are feeling the pressure to level/gear up skyrocket, especially with the recent expansion/more **** to 'farm'/get to become end game.

Chrisssss - Sanctuary · September 2014

The best way to answer this is to look at it unbiased, and I'll do this by making a parallel comparison from the pwi world of 2008/2014.

Pros and Cons

2008 Pros
Higher player base
Working together in squad was a must in pve
Game had more intrest amoung players
Gold was around 100K (benefited none cashshoppers the most)
The game was more challenging
TW factions were more balanced and interesting

2008 Cons
Instance runs like TT took around 2-4 hrs depending on the squad
Dying was more coastly and easier (exp for clerics)
Auto pathing didn't exsist, everything was manual and it took along time to travel the map
Classes were more unbalanced between the casters and melee
Leveling was more difficult (I'll explain this more).

2014 Pros
Instances are more quicker and efficent for higher levels
There are gears dedicated to the pve players (morai gear)
PVP is more attractive (tw/nw and supply wars)
Weekly codes/gifts (charms are the biggest benefit to this)
Causual players can enjoy the game more by leveling in realm and botting (10 hrs) of grinding
2014 Cons
Golds too expensive for the none cashshoppers
player base is low
A lot of bugs in the game
PVP gear has a big impact (kind of debatable, I'll explain more)
Game interest is low

This is all based on my personal experence as along time player, the game changed a lot but there are a couple of things that newer players should understand. In 2008 it really was difficult to level actually was harder than it is now imo, back than there was only clerics that could rez, mystics and psy buffs didn't exsist. Unless you had a rez scroll 50K (back then it was expensive for the adverage casual player) you needed a cleric and if you where luckly enough to know or find a cleric with lvl 11 rez you wouldn't get the full exp back if you died. Sage/demon books were harder and more expensive compared to now, also life as a cleric was more difficult because we couldn't handle a lot of dmg and + holy path didn't exsist so things where a lot slower to move around.

Also its intereting because 2014 does kind of balance out lowered geared players between higher r999 geared players with war avatars cards (which are free) and refining may actually be easier if you consider lvl 100 dailys/event gold and gold events that offer free dragon orbs. I'm not defending the game when it comes to refinement I still think what the game charges is outrages but charge rewards does give you more for your money. Casters and melee classes are a little more balanced when you consider purfy proc (offered on r8r) and the new primal stune and high crits. Also spirit balances out the classes whom has high att/def lvls (high shared, r999 players) this is also free to players who does dailys and lvl their war avatar cards.

My final opinion to answer the question is honestly nothing, the game is just old and there been a lot added to the game that just frusterates the new player. New players can't enjoy the things that makes this game unique and attractive like nw/tw because they have to do primal skills, morai skills and level up all of which takes along time. Can't really blame pwe or devs fully not to say I'm agreeing with FCC nerf or r9, just players have to point the finger at themselves. Most high geared players don't want to spend hours running in an instance for very little reward, even in 2008 it was very difficult to just farm TT60 and buying it was expensive for that day. Only way to make it attractive is if older higher geared players focused on helping newer players which means a mass exile of domanant factions and coin sinks on things like IGs/auto pots. All of which I doubt will ever happen so to be honest the game is just dying and probably has a good 2-3 years left.

What can be done to attract / keep new Players ?

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