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[Survival] Help us figure out why people leave after the join

Started by Towelie, Jan 25, 2020, 12:48 PM

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Towelie

As the title says, a lot of new players just leave after a few minutes.
The aim of this post is:
- Figure out why
- Figure out what we can do to stop most of them from leaving and get their interest.


Please tell us why you think that is and we will do our best to help.
Are our help books / spawn boards too much info but too few relevant info? We need your help to find that out!


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Towelie

To those that don't know what this is about:
- We have quite a good number of new joins per day, but we are able to maintain only a fraction of them
- We want to know what makes people just leave after a few minutes. I mean ok, I'll be the first to admit, we don't have the content that a server with a full time dev team and paid staff would, but we aren't that terrible either.... So it must be something with the way we present the server to the players. Either the info is too long and strenous or I don't know, hence why I'm asking you to help


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George

First of all from what I've seen , players sometimes get confused either by being foreign and not speaking our language (For example a german kid asked me in german to play some online video game and he got banned like 10 minutes after by staff which i dont blame because it was something.com). Also people dont always understand all the commands etc. + The spawn is huge and they think their trapped. Now about the spawn thing I think you can add some slime launcher things to take you far out which will also be fun for new players. Have a nice day!
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Mayalilz

I have a friend who just joined and after a conversation with her I can conclude that she finds the server very complicated, there are lots of commands and I took quite a while having to teach her, and still I find that there's things she doesn't know. She wasn't aware of our guide book, found the slime fun book confusing.
After a lot of teaching I think she's got the basics down. This server takes a while to learn, and not everyone has a personal tour guide.
We need to find a way to clarify things to players, before they get confused and leave.

Dday694

Hub worlds are defined by size and accessibility. The current main spawn although nice, in my opinion is to massive. When new joins enter, they see a huge barren area with 4 different paths and no idea where to go to get out of spawn (personally not to mention that the help/tutorial is a bit out of place). That plus with the amount of space used, it makes the server feel more empty.

Personally, I would suggest that a new spawn might be in order. One that is more constrained but maybe something that looks naturally built within a terrain and shows easy access out of spawn. Another thing is maybe for new joins make the initial spawn somewhere where it gives them the option to see a quick breakdown of commands/rules and tips. If they choose not to, then they just automatically go to the main hub. For that spawning point however, make it on the outskirts near the entrance to the wild and then let the players choose to either head into the town, or go right into the wild (with of course the general rules and whatnot nearby)

Autpek

Piggy backing off Dday, the old spawn had rooms right there to explain slimefun, rules, what builds are acceptable.  I think if we do not want to make a new spawn, you can rework some of the areas to take over this function.  People also love clicking on things, so you can make a tutorial and at the end of each section (Rules / MCMMO addins / Slime fun / pyromon / sw|W3 / |creative|loot / etc) have a sign click (or command-block button) that warps them from one place to another within the spawn.  I do not know if this would help keep new players off the bat, but the ones who stay will have an easy to get to visual representation on most questions they have (I am looking at you slimefun machines).

If you log onto a big server you always to a spawn that then lets you choose what mode you want to play.  Hypixel with minigames,house, skyblocks, etc.

Also the spawn screams aquatic update, so maybe having an area showing things from the newest update will emphasize we are most up to-date (as part of the tutorial warp chain - a room with bees and honey with a couple of vehicles).  This is something we have over bigger servers since they are hard stuck on a version due to addins.

Lastly, some sort of community effort to group what player made attractions are already completed that can be played without an eventhost.  We have casinos, parkour, amusement parks, towns, explore builds like egypt/junglerun (Tantive has one but I forgot what he called it) that no one visits because they do not know the warps.  Maybe redo spawn a bit and have the players build a little part of their world inside some of the buildings as featured places to visit.  Or you can have a warp at spawn taking you to a warp board with all the shops and attractions.  Anyone who paid in the premium shop to promote on /gui can build a sample shop/build of their main warp, and everyone else just gets a warp sign. I am working on a project with oi right now trying to create a network for player made attractions.

Just a couple of thoughts.

Waffle_man22

When I was looking for a survival server like SFT I had a lot of options to pick from and pretty quickly I would move on if things weren't easy to understand or interesting.  Much of the player base is made of kids and people who don't care enough to figure out how our server works or go through a long tutorial process.  I think this leads players to leave and look for a simpler experience among other things.

It this is true then it would be great to create a balance of easy to understand tutorials that still have all the needed information.  With the current tutorial, the warp is somewhat hidden by the spawn message, it would make more sense for warp tutorial to be the first thing you see along with other important commands like /rules /random and /servers to see the other servers.  It is a barebones approach, similar but different from the current message.

Warp tutorial could also be changed, the first thing I saw when I walked in was all of the staff and player ranks.  While good information it is not essential and discouraging to a new player to try and comprehend all of these permissions and titles. It is overwhelming to someone with no prior knowledge and could easily cause them to stop going through the tutorial or just leave the server. I'm not just trying to hammer this one section, the whole tutorial needs to be the opposite of this, organized and targeted for someone with no prior knowledge and little patience to read.

The rest of the tutorial really only covers some Frequently Asked Questions and the more so confusing Build Code Violation rules in a somewhat complex layout which to me is missing out on a whole lot of potential.  I would create a system similar to many player auto shops, with a signboard with different categories labeled with their topic that then would bring you to an isolated room with only that information.  Ideally, there would be some way to have Starting Info and other essential information as the first ones to be visited.  This would essentially be a more robust version of the 20-page help book. How is this any better then? This allows easier navigation so a player can get information on what they need and nothing more, preventing unnecessary time spent reading or getting overwhelmed by something complicated right out of the start, while still having more information on each topic.

Some Examples:   
  • Starting Information-Basic information such as rules, finding and protecting land, emp, events, FAQ.  Just enough to get them started
  • Server Ranks-Breif description of Staff and Non-Staff ranks, including donator ranks since they often get mixed up as staff
  • SlimeFun-Basics over SlimeFun, a video about SFT SlimeFun would be great as this can be hard to explain with signs
In no way am I trying to discredit the hard work of others, a refined tutorial system is one way I think we could help prevent overwhelming and confusing players, causing more to stay in the long run.  There is definitely room for improvement in my ideas which is what I hope happens- improvement.

Towelie

Could I get some info on how you think we should better explain our server so that new people understand?


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Delmaire

When I'm online, a lot of players usually say "where's spleef" or a specific minigame. I'm guessing that some players are reading off of an outdated advertisement on one of the many websites we're on.

A lot of players are from larger servers where you don't need that much if not any communication to do simple things. On larger servers you rarely need to ask for help to do things and all of the instructions are in your face. Put them somewhere where they're more than likely to find an exit to spawn or prompt them with a hologram that says "do /random". Make frequent [Info] and [Broadcast] announcements to remind players that mods are the ones who claim land for them.

To solve the question of player confusion you could also put them in a portion of spawn where to get through the rest of spawn, they would walk through a slideshow of our server rules and a list of commands.

T4Tom2

From a quick look around spawn I have a few notes;

When players join, they need to be immediately confronted with the rules of the server, but more importantly a quick but not too complex guide on how to do things, stuff like /random, /homeset, /warp create, how to get builds protected, autoshop guides and a guide to using the emp to name just a few. They also don't need to be overburdened with commands and tips they will rarely use; it really needs to be an ease of access thing. Following on from this, the extra information, stuff like slimefun guide and a more expansive server guide needs to be readily available from spawn and needs to be VERY obvious where it is (when I went looking it took me about 2 minutes to find, by which time a new player may well have left).

Perhaps a remodelling of W1 spawn is required, to make it so that it contains purely informational guides and nothing else, with its core purpose being to provide new players with simply the information required to get started and then get them out into the survival world, to perhaps play 5-10 hours in order to get them invested in the server, before they need more information which by this point they will be more willing to go and look for and investigate further to find. Then W2 spawn can contain some more decorative and monument type items, emp staff heads and other things like this

Towelie

@SashaLarie - I want you to involve the whole Manager+ team in trying to solve this issue. Mandatory task.
Start by looking at this post, taking things that repeat, then come up with solutions either to me directly or in forum posts (as discord is easy to miss)


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xJade


 :redflower: :redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower::redflower:

:heart:You MUST learn to help yourself. Thats how you become stronger. :heart:

Towelie

Quote from: xJimJam on Jan 31, 2020, 01:34 PMMaybe this plugin can help too! https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/server-tutorial-plus.37741/
I'm really not a fan of doing this with plugins, as with every MC update plugins get outdated, and most of the time the authors go inactive and the resource is deleted.


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Towelie

The first result of this post is that we have replaced the w2 hologram with one that should help in letting players know what our server is, a lot faster:



The second, is that our architects will be building a sleek (small and well defined exits) new spawn somewhere in world2, in water, so it can easily be transferred to other worlds when we do a world reset.
Keep them coming, we are looking at this post!


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sommergirl41

Quote from: Towelie on Feb 01, 2020, 02:10 PMThe first result of this post is that we have replaced the w2 hologram with one that should help in letting players know what our server is, a lot faster:



The second, is that our architects will be building a sleek (small and well defined exits) new spawn somewhere in world2, in water, so it can easily be transferred to other worlds when we do a world reset.
Keep them coming, we are looking at this post!
to be completely honest i think that this can be rewritten and even more straight forward. In my opinon if i joined a server and saw all of that i would probably skim it at best, maybe im just lazy but it just seems like a lot. Consider rewriting it to solely the basics, /random, /gui, mentioning that the server is survival with the different plugins. everything else perhaps write elsewhere, or they will learn about the other things through player word of mouth on the server. 

T4Tom2

Quote from: sommergirl41 on Feb 02, 2020, 05:21 AM
Quote from: Towelie on Feb 01, 2020, 02:10 PMThe first result of this post is that we have replaced the w2 hologram with one that should help in letting players know what our server is, a lot faster:



The second, is that our architects will be building a sleek (small and well defined exits) new spawn somewhere in world2, in water, so it can easily be transferred to other worlds when we do a world reset.
Keep them coming, we are looking at this post!
to be completely honest i think that this can be rewritten and even more straight forward. In my opinon if i joined a server and saw all of that i would probably skim it at best, maybe im just lazy but it just seems like a lot. Consider rewriting it to solely the basics, /random, /gui, mentioning that the server is survival with the different plugins. everything else perhaps write elsewhere, or they will learn about the other things through player word of mouth on the server. 
I can only agree with this; if this is the first thing new players read when they join we need to make this hologram simple enough that children could read and understand it without being overbearing. I would probably take out lines 4,6,7,8,9 and make this information available elsewhere

Towelie

Quote from: sommergirl41 on Feb 02, 2020, 05:21 AM
Quote from: Towelie on Feb 01, 2020, 02:10 PMThe first result of this post is that we have replaced the w2 hologram with one that should help in letting players know what our server is, a lot faster:



The second, is that our architects will be building a sleek (small and well defined exits) new spawn somewhere in world2, in water, so it can easily be transferred to other worlds when we do a world reset.
Keep them coming, we are looking at this post!
to be completely honest i think that this can be rewritten and even more straight forward. In my opinon if i joined a server and saw all of that i would probably skim it at best, maybe im just lazy but it just seems like a lot. Consider rewriting it to solely the basics, /random, /gui, mentioning that the server is survival with the different plugins. everything else perhaps write elsewhere, or they will learn about the other things through player word of mouth on the server. 
Could you perhaps help me write a shorter one?
As in you write here on forum.


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Towelie

Quote from: T4Tom2 on Feb 02, 2020, 12:01 PM
Quote from: sommergirl41 on Feb 02, 2020, 05:21 AM
Quote from: Towelie on Feb 01, 2020, 02:10 PMThe first result of this post is that we have replaced the w2 hologram with one that should help in letting players know what our server is, a lot faster:



The second, is that our architects will be building a sleek (small and well defined exits) new spawn somewhere in world2, in water, so it can easily be transferred to other worlds when we do a world reset.
Keep them coming, we are looking at this post!
to be completely honest i think that this can be rewritten and even more straight forward. In my opinon if i joined a server and saw all of that i would probably skim it at best, maybe im just lazy but it just seems like a lot. Consider rewriting it to solely the basics, /random, /gui, mentioning that the server is survival with the different plugins. everything else perhaps write elsewhere, or they will learn about the other things through player word of mouth on the server. 
I can only agree with this; if this is the first thing new players read when they join we need to make this hologram simple enough that children could read and understand it without being overbearing. I would probably take out lines 4,6,7,8,9 and make this information available elsewhere
Well, I'm notoriously bad at making short messages, so could you help ? xd


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sommergirl41

Quote from: Towelie on Feb 02, 2020, 02:45 PM
Quote from: sommergirl41 on Feb 02, 2020, 05:21 AM
Quote from: Towelie on Feb 01, 2020, 02:10 PMThe first result of this post is that we have replaced the w2 hologram with one that should help in letting players know what our server is, a lot faster:



The second, is that our architects will be building a sleek (small and well defined exits) new spawn somewhere in world2, in water, so it can easily be transferred to other worlds when we do a world reset.
Keep them coming, we are looking at this post!
to be completely honest i think that this can be rewritten and even more straight forward. In my opinon if i joined a server and saw all of that i would probably skim it at best, maybe im just lazy but it just seems like a lot. Consider rewriting it to solely the basics, /random, /gui, mentioning that the server is survival with the different plugins. everything else perhaps write elsewhere, or they will learn about the other things through player word of mouth on the server. 
Could you perhaps help me write a shorter one?
As in you write here on forum.
Welcome to Super Fun time!
To improve your experience please read before playing
This is a survival server with mcMMO and Slimefun plugins
To get out of spawn, and find buildable land type /random
To receive additional information type /gui for a help book
If you decide you want a harder experience, try /sw

obviously alter it if something seems unnecessary & if tom has any input too. 

Towelie

Have shortened to your recommendation, thank you


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