Just so everyone knows, we are reading this and we're looking into long-term plans to increase the playerbase over the coming year. It's going to take time and a great deal of planning but it's naive to think we're happy with everything as it is. Here's a little look in to my thought process at this time - feel free to discuss and chime in, more suggestions means more potential improvement.
So, Toribash has three pillars in which the game appeals to new users and three anchors that wall them off. These anchors currently outweigh the pillars currently and as a result we do not retain a vast number of unique users. This is what they are:
Pillars (interesting and engaging features for the new user)
- Mods
- Customisation
- Free game with interesting looking gameplay
Anchors (reasons users stop playing, by and large)
- Learning curve
- Presentation & documentation
- Small development team
(Some of you are going to decry the fact ranked matchmaking isn't listed as an anchor. I'll get to that later.)
I feel like the pros are all self explanatory.
Mods add replayability to the game, both casually and competitively and a means for the community's creative minds to engage in content creation.
Customisation stimulates a real in-game economy, allows users to establish an identity
and now even act as another way for our creatives to get their work into the game. Lastly, we can all agree that Toribash looks great in motion. Most people got pulled in by seeing the awesome stuff our community can do to in replays and hell, it's a
free game with a small download. Why not give it a try? All strong groundwork that we should continue to build on.
With that said, lets acknowledge our flaws.
This game is god damn hard to learn and it's one of the few games where the tutorial doesn't really do anything but add bad openers to your muscle memory. It's not so much a learning curve as it is over a
learning wall with a steep incline. I think this is easily the biggest reason we lose players because outside of watching replays and doing the tutorial most new players will spend their first 30 minutes falling over in a turn-based fashion which is slow, boring and repetitive. Newer players will likely almost feel lied to because what they saw from trailers and videos is simply not what they're getting. Check any media that markets the game - you will see fast, explosive replays and sped up footage of turnframes. The reality is that the moment to moment gameplay of Toribash is meticulously tactical and for that reason it's slow, nothing like what the new user is expecting. Not only this but there are many mechanics that the game does not explain to you and little to no up-to-date
official documentation that explains the nuances of the game. The only given here that we have to deal with is the nature of the
small development team. It's been discussed at length that the implementation of features directly correlates to the amount of people working on the game (not many) and though this doesn't affect newer users so much it does cause older users to feel as though the game is stagnating. The only solution here is to hire more developers which obviously comes with a monetary drawback but I don't doubt that Nabi would hire provided the game grew to a point where it made sense financially to do so. So, with that said lets consider the following:
- Lessening the learning curve.
I have been sitting on an idea for this myself. I think there's been a few suggestions that have missed what it means to actually reduce the gameplay to a manageable level for new players and the solution is the ability to group joints under a custom preset that the player can define. So when a player goes into singleplayer they can define body parts (eg: right arm = wrist, elbow, shoulder & pec) and save movements to that body part on a certain turnframe with a name (eg: "punch wind up") and then load that during multiplayer and singleplayer matches from a list on-screen. The user can combine these movements alongside fine tuning with mouseclicks as normal to complete their moves quickly in a way that they understand (after all, they did make the moves). Combined these could form openers and situational movements depending on how much they utilised the feature. Taking this to the next level would be allowing users to upload, share and rate their preset moves so that the burden of finding out what works and what doesn't isn't on the new player.
- More useful tutorial, challenges and other singleplayer content.
The tutorial does a good job of teaching people to grab and move the most basic of joints but it doesn't test the player in any meaningful way after the fact. The match against uke at the end, despite its flaws, is a good first test for the player simply because it's there. There needs to be more challenges like this that test the player's competence before throwing them at other players. Imagine a challenge section for new players that scales in difficulty, e.g: balance for 500f/50tf without dq in a small dojo -> balance for 500f/50tf without dq + moving 5 joints a turn -> balance on this pole for 500f/50tf without dq -> balance on a smaller pole without hands for 500f/50tf without dq
We need to see things like that. We can reward people for completion a number of ways and append more challenges to that list as the ideas come. We could add parkour maps, "beat this opener" (specify uke to do an opener, etc.) dismemberment challenges, you name it. Not only would it mean the user has some sort of handle on the game past the very basics but there's no reason we couldn't also make really tough challenges for the older players who want singleplayer content that comes with bragging rights upon completion.
- Marketing Toribash to the hardcore audience as well as the casual.
Marketing in the past hasn't really had any concrete figures mostly because they weren't recorded at the time (not a mistake we're going to make again, I assure you) but having been in the game myself when the game was being marketed I can say that the effect wasn't lost on people. We had new users come when the game was promoted on Youtube via. trailers/big channels playing it, the only issue is that we kept very few of them. That's mostly because of the listed anchors but also because we've never once tried attacking those people who are looking for a brutally difficult skill-based game that essentially has no limit on creativity. Why not look for those players and market this game locally on strategy/simulation game forums/communities? It seems by and large we've been poaching casual players far too often - before we do that again we should target the audience that makes the most sense THEN go for the casuals once we lessen the learning curve and make the gameplay more accessible.
- Adding resources that players can learn from.
Where's the match history? Why isn't saving my own & other people's moves easy? Why don't replays show statistics, or move breakdown per turn? Why isn't there any videos showing the range of movement for each joint? Why isn't there an official explanation as to how certain mechanics work in the game (bruising, fractures, double grabs)? Why isn't there a place that shows the official mods' layout, playstyle, top players etc? Why isn't there official documentation on how to modmake?
The list goes on. Some of these things are easily dodged by telling the user to consult the behemoth that is the (probably outdated, likely too long-winded) forum FAQ but consider the fact that newer users probably aren't aware that the forum exists and even if they are they do not want to spend more time sifting through the FAQ to find answers to questions that likely won't make them any better at the game in any short breath. They're asking to understand the game at the base level - this should be something the game has in it in a simple and accessible format. All games with a steep learning are their own best source of documentation - look at almost any MOBA (arguably the closest thing in terms of depth mechanically to Toribash other than fighting games which ALSO have this level of documentation (unless you're sleep fighter xD)) they all have a learning tab of some sort and this helps wonders for general game knowledge and understanding.
Now with all that said let me address ranked and why I haven't mentioned it. We're talking about "revival", namely this means pulling users we don't currently have. We need an in-pouring of unique users in order to increase the playerbase meaningfully (read as: past a point of being stagnant and having a net gain) and as a result we should focus on things that directly improve the user experience on a level that those new, unique users will be at. Ranked matchmaking in any game is generally something a user visits once they're confident enough in their skill level that they give it a go though I believe the majority of users we lose never even make it to ranked, let alone multiplayer. Now,
this does not mean ranked will not be getting looked at, in fact
as per the current ranked discussion you can see
developer interaction. It simply means that if we're talking about pulling new users
we should consider things that put new users off, ranked is not one of those things.
The way ranked is puts established players off and whilst you guys are just as important as the new guys but it does not belong in discussion about revival, it's more for a discussion about maintenance and improvement.
Last edited by Gynx; Dec 15, 2016 at 10:29 PM.
