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The game has a fundemental problem with attracting and retaining players sadly. Its just badly designed, because devcat/nexon KR only cared about overall profit. So they do stuff like the dumb enhancing/enchanting system, really low drop rates and ignoring broken old content in favor of pushing out new content. If one crazy KR guy spends $200 a month buying runes, they are totally fine with that even if they lose 10 players who might have spent $100 a month in total.
Most veterans have seen countless people quit because of the enhancing/enchanting system and the low drop rates. "Why bother playing if im not going to get any good drops anyway". People rage quitting becaue they fail to +8 a weapon 10 times.
New characters make a lot of money for Nexon because the big spenders go nuts buying outfits, inners, hairs, etc, runes to try and make a +15 and all sorts of stuff. Its great for making money, but does jack for the actual population. Yea, population will spike for maybe a month...but most of the peopel who came back for the new character will quit within a month once the novelty wears off.
Look at Delia at release, look at Delia now. How many people play their Delia alts on a regular basis now? And by play, i mean do actual stuff rather than just succubus/muir/shakkar/arena or afking in town. The game is setup to actively discourage people from playing their alts on a regular basis...considering the amount of money/work you have to do to shell out to get a +10 weapon and fully enchanted oj gear. What do you get in return? It doesnt help you make money or get drops at all, since you could have just used your main for that. About the only advantage it gives you is the ability to do more raids without VIP, but most people dont have the time to take advantage of that anyway, and buying VIP for your main would have been cheaper (not to mention giving you an extra core).
Unless that alt is OP like what hurk was at release, most people dont permanently switch to a new character because of the switching cost involved and because they usually prefer their current main character. So most people come back for a while because of a new character then quit again. It does nothing long term for the game population.
Practically all new content suffers from the same problem. They cause a short term spike in game population, but once the novelty wears off, people just go "meh". It doesnt help that devcat got lazy and started using parallel content with s2 rather than increasing the level cap like s1. Yea its really easy to make a bunch of level 90 gear all with the same stats, but most people's reactions to that are "why should i do this new raid when it doesnt give me anything i need anyway" or "why should i run X when i can run Y which is easier and more fun?".
The staff at Nexon are operating based on quarterly profits. This isnt unusual, but the short term focus isnt doing much for the long term survivability of the game. They only plan for short term boosts in profit by creating new characters/weapons or introducing the occasional new raid. They dont care if people only come back for a month or less, as long as it boosts profits for the quarter.
Things like character revamps, revamping core game mechanics and content, are what brings players back for long term, but they dont happen much because they are a lot of work and its difficult to sell or measure profitability. Its much easier to just make something "new" because it has a much more drastic and visible effect.
Events also have the same problem. Events (usually) dont make people come back for the long term. Look at the enchant scroll shop event. People came back, did easy s1 raids for scrolls, then quit again. Look at now. Tons of people just afking in town. The moment they get the afk rewards, they simply quit again. Without addressing the reasons why people are quitting, its a never ending cycle of people coming back for a while and quitting. And new players are rare because frankly, if you are a new player, vindi simply cannot compare to games like BDO.
I haven't left but if there is a event that made me play nonstop it would be this one:
these mysterious treasure chest would drop from every boss ingame, so you do a run at 5 spider brothers (thats what it was called in EU, don't know about NA) and you get either key or chest, 50% key 50% chest from boss do thats 5 event drops every run. And the things you get from those, well lets just say it almost made Nexon EU go bankrupt. (they were so low on income that they had to cut off the event due to ''technical difficulties'' as they put it. Check video:
The gold chieftain event has been the best event I've seen in awhile. That event like stated earlier DIRECTLY rewarded you with the amount of effort you put in.
Yes it had RNG on the letters which made it difficult to get the best prize (pet) but while you push to get that prize you are constantly being rewarded with items that cost NX to buy.
Also like stated above the afk events do not help the longevity of the game, its more like life-support.
Kommentare
Most veterans have seen countless people quit because of the enhancing/enchanting system and the low drop rates. "Why bother playing if im not going to get any good drops anyway". People rage quitting becaue they fail to +8 a weapon 10 times.
New characters make a lot of money for Nexon because the big spenders go nuts buying outfits, inners, hairs, etc, runes to try and make a +15 and all sorts of stuff. Its great for making money, but does jack for the actual population. Yea, population will spike for maybe a month...but most of the peopel who came back for the new character will quit within a month once the novelty wears off.
Look at Delia at release, look at Delia now. How many people play their Delia alts on a regular basis now? And by play, i mean do actual stuff rather than just succubus/muir/shakkar/arena or afking in town. The game is setup to actively discourage people from playing their alts on a regular basis...considering the amount of money/work you have to do to shell out to get a +10 weapon and fully enchanted oj gear. What do you get in return? It doesnt help you make money or get drops at all, since you could have just used your main for that. About the only advantage it gives you is the ability to do more raids without VIP, but most people dont have the time to take advantage of that anyway, and buying VIP for your main would have been cheaper (not to mention giving you an extra core).
Unless that alt is OP like what hurk was at release, most people dont permanently switch to a new character because of the switching cost involved and because they usually prefer their current main character. So most people come back for a while because of a new character then quit again. It does nothing long term for the game population.
Practically all new content suffers from the same problem. They cause a short term spike in game population, but once the novelty wears off, people just go "meh". It doesnt help that devcat got lazy and started using parallel content with s2 rather than increasing the level cap like s1. Yea its really easy to make a bunch of level 90 gear all with the same stats, but most people's reactions to that are "why should i do this new raid when it doesnt give me anything i need anyway" or "why should i run X when i can run Y which is easier and more fun?".
The staff at Nexon are operating based on quarterly profits. This isnt unusual, but the short term focus isnt doing much for the long term survivability of the game. They only plan for short term boosts in profit by creating new characters/weapons or introducing the occasional new raid. They dont care if people only come back for a month or less, as long as it boosts profits for the quarter.
Things like character revamps, revamping core game mechanics and content, are what brings players back for long term, but they dont happen much because they are a lot of work and its difficult to sell or measure profitability. Its much easier to just make something "new" because it has a much more drastic and visible effect.
Events also have the same problem. Events (usually) dont make people come back for the long term. Look at the enchant scroll shop event. People came back, did easy s1 raids for scrolls, then quit again. Look at now. Tons of people just afking in town. The moment they get the afk rewards, they simply quit again. Without addressing the reasons why people are quitting, its a never ending cycle of people coming back for a while and quitting. And new players are rare because frankly, if you are a new player, vindi simply cannot compare to games like BDO.
these mysterious treasure chest would drop from every boss ingame, so you do a run at 5 spider brothers (thats what it was called in EU, don't know about NA) and you get either key or chest, 50% key 50% chest from boss do thats 5 event drops every run. And the things you get from those, well lets just say it almost made Nexon EU go bankrupt. (they were so low on income that they had to cut off the event due to ''technical difficulties'' as they put it. Check video:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ThF3vbWu7xQ
Yes it had RNG on the letters which made it difficult to get the best prize (pet) but while you push to get that prize you are constantly being rewarded with items that cost NX to buy.
Also like stated above the afk events do not help the longevity of the game, its more like life-support.