Keeping Casuals Engaged in Season 2

[Zeik]

Most of this is copied and pasted from another post, but I wanted to drop it in feedback as well.
My overall feedback: Super impressed with what the devs have done with DAOC on Eden. I really appreciate the efforts pumping some new life into our beloved game!

I played quite a bit of season 1, but my interest waned as time went on and I will try to summarize why that happened below. My thought is that there may be a lot of people with a similar experience, and if they were more incentivized to keep playing, that the population numbers may stay stronger further into the season.

There really needs to be a strong motivation for people with many real life responsibilities and a small amount of play time to log in. I imagine there is a large portion of the player base that just doesn't have tons of time to play and/or can only play in small increments when they get a break from RL.

This is not an issue for this crowd while leveling up and working on a character's gear/template. It's actually quite enjoyable and relaxing to jump on for 45min-1hr if you can find the play time and work on leveling up a character. Why? Because you can make meaningful progress in that amount of time.

Once you are leveled, geared, and want to start getting into the end game/RVR, the experience is quite a bit different. It can take the whole 45min-1hr window you have to play just to form a group. So, if you know you don't have the time to form a proper group you are left with the option of solo or small man. Solo/small man has a tendency to become quite frustrating in its own right by getting killed by greater numbers the majority of the time.

I think you combat this by offering very strong rewards for attainable RvR quests (kill X players, etc). My first thought would be to have a high reward daily and weekly quest. This gives you the chance to earn some good RPs every day, and if it's a good week where you get to play a bit more than usual, maybe you have time to complete the weekly for a very good RP reward.
The people with more playtime will still be getting the majority of their RPs/RRanks from kills and time spent RVRing, but this would give the people that don't have as much time a strong incentive to keep playing once the RR gap starts to widen and population starts dropping.

[Moonshot]

Well making the grind less of a grind would probably do it. (Que the "i leveled to 50 in 10 hours" clowns)

[Effectus]

Most of this is copied and pasted from another post, but I wanted to drop it in feedback as well.
My overall feedback: Super impressed with what the devs have done with DAOC on Eden. I really appreciate the efforts pumping some new life into our beloved game!

I played quite a bit of season 1, but my interest waned as time went on and I will try to summarize why that happened below. My thought is that there may be a lot of people with a similar experience, and if they were more incentivized to keep playing, that the population numbers may stay stronger further into the season.

There really needs to be a strong motivation for people with many real life responsibilities and a small amount of play time to log in. I imagine there is a large portion of the player base that just doesn't have tons of time to play and/or can only play in small increments when they get a break from RL.

This is not an issue for this crowd while leveling up and working on a character's gear/template. It's actually quite enjoyable and relaxing to jump on for 45min-1hr if you can find the play time and work on leveling up a character. Why? Because you can make meaningful progress in that amount of time.

Once you are leveled, geared, and want to start getting into the end game/RVR, the experience is quite a bit different. It can take the whole 45min-1hr window you have to play just to form a group. So, if you know you don't have the time to form a proper group you are left with the option of solo or small man. Solo/small man has a tendency to become quite frustrating in its own right by getting killed by greater numbers the majority of the time.

I think you combat this by offering very strong rewards for attainable RvR quests (kill X players, etc). My first thought would be to have a high reward daily and weekly quest. This gives you the chance to earn some good RPs every day, and if it's a good week where you get to play a bit more than usual, maybe you have time to complete the weekly for a very good RP reward.
The people with more playtime will still be getting the majority of their RPs/RRanks from kills and time spent RVRing, but this would give the people that don't have as much time a strong incentive to keep playing once the RR gap starts to widen and population starts dropping.

Zeik!!! Great Post!!

I agree with the time to get temped / setup / a group going.

I totally think increased RP income through quests and RP through kill increased SIGNIFICANTLY with increase and help maintain action!!!

[Rtha]

Dynamic Missions and something yet unannounced will likely help with getting into the action faster and make people feel like they can accomplish a few things in short bursts of RvR.

[Pollo Jack]

You can template from PvP I believe.

I would appreciate making the final templating easier but keeping the lvling as is.

I remember it taking forever to get my 8-12 sets of weapons for RvR. I know, stealther is the solo hard path but I struggle to get groups on anything once I am 50. I can make groups just fine but not all hours is good for that.

[Rtha]

You don't need that many sets anymore. You can poison weapons in combat with /poison macros