Social Survey: Why people are loosing interest to Discovery?

[Toaster]

Toxicity in the community is absolutely #1. Development's snail pace probably comes second, exacerbated by the fact that there's too small a playerbase left to distract from it. We had 4.85 for an eternity, but it never bothered me because there was so much going on at all times regardless. Now, much less so. There also isn't much to do gameplay/interaction-wise. You either sit around in space and chat with other characters or you shoot at each other. Again, due to the small playerbase, many other interactions just don't occur anymore (or rarely). I don't recall the last time I was pirated in a transport and I've done maybe two impromptu escorts in the past year.

So, the dwindling playerbase is making the playerbase dwindle faster.

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Olivia Sable

[Darius]

So, the dwindling playerbase is making the playerbase dwindle faster.

Exactly this tbh.

[glassofwater]

My own personal concern is the small playerbase. If it was larger new players would be more enticed early on to make friends and to be engaged as they'd see more interactions around them and choose likely to be a part of them.

[L e o n]

Also, I think there is only focus on liberty, Like other houses are pretty much dead. Like all things happen in liberty and that's a bit sad to see Gallia Bretonia and Rheinland a bit dead.

[Binski]

I have always believed that its not been the age of the game or graphics limitations that have deterred people. Its been the lack of changes to activities and the slow elimination of options for players that have made tolerating the imperfections of the game (or other members) too much at times.

Its not too late to really turn things around for this place but there must be an adoption of a new philosophy among the lead devs. That being that embracing more freedoms for players is going to be the only hook to playing here rather than somewhere else. Most players hit a figurative wall or 'ceiling' after they play here for a while. I hit it every year. We earn lots of ships and equipment but have little reason to use them. We've adopted a routine of keeping things as neutral as possible, while jacking up the pvp dominance.

The mod could be used for a lot more activities. Also, it could stand to go back to trying to create long term situations and goals for players/factions by leaving open some options. The main point will be that on top of weekend events or monthly official events, we could really do well in caring about the rest of the week. If there's little going on, no one grinds for stuff during the week, cuz why bother?

In my opinion, here are a few things that will do a lot of good for the server as to bringing back the atmosphere of growth and Freelancers' "A Universe of Possibilities" as written on the box.

-Get rid of rules limiting ROE's beyond ID rules ( People don't like worrying about whether what they're doing is now wrong when before it was fine)

-Allow RP'ing data you collect while cloaked (like scanning ships, so you can be a real spy, instead of being forced to do nothing. Yup, its a tough world out there. Yet this will let anyone RP what they see, and finally go back to cops catching smugglers or criminals, and let spies report back on things they see while cloaked. Otherwise, yet again, we deny reality to save someone an inconvenience they shouldn't be spared. They buy a cloak disruptor though, they earned it.)

-Allow jumping transports (so people have something to work towards, and can allow for more difficult things to be achieved, if its so detrimental to traditional trade, which it won't be, balance it out another way)

-Start bases at 200 million (So they have a better chance to get off the ground despite being built in a disputed area, and can also be used for easier establishment of border stations/security checkpoints etc.)

-Add an ammo requirement of some kind to bases for Weapons Platforms (we can always use new reasons to have real consumable commodities that have more value in game, and it makes the POB weapons platform issue balanced by making a base's force projection commensurate with player effort). I suggested making a WP respawn require the base to have 100 units of an ammo commodity. That means 1000 units for 10 respawns of a WP. Easy math. If a base runs out, no matter how many def modules it has, it becomes neutralized until resupplied. That also creates a new job of ammo shipper/supplier!

-Implement the ability for repair ships to repair POB's and other objects with a hitpoints bar. This will add an additional ability for players to try to keep their base afloat. It would also work well if we had a faction challenge system where they siege destroyable objects. This would create another form of job on the server, people could actually offer repair services, and for more than ships, which is usually not practical, except at base sieges.

-Add an organized Official Faction Battle/Challenge System that OF's can use (by invoking new FR's to challenge for control of planets/moons/bases/stations/jumpgates. This creates a whole new avenue for the game, and is the most important one. All it really requires are agreed upon rules, and a way to accurately carry out the battle, likely by sieging objects, which many will say is mundane but it is also fair. This will create a situation where players will be able to choose their faction based on how it can grow and develop, with some chances for real player earned gains. This should give both lawful and unlawful sides much to do in the lines of real activity, maintaining their territory's security, fighting to maintain order/control of planets/stations etc on a regular basis, based on player interest.

I suggest to keep it simple, use SciData. Say, for a faction to use its FR to challenge over a place (planet/station), they must cash in so much scidata (say 500 units, but a system could be done up with a chart to show how much is required for what action, maybe it would be 500 for a station, 1000 for a planet...?). That way a faction could earn the data by either mining or buying it and leaving the mining up to others. This would signify a faction investing/planning on an industrial scale before launching a move on a new place. This would drive up the value of the data, the mining of it, and make use of the build up. (the original faction battle system I wrote up is here, which is more complicated but involves using a turn based system to move around faction stationary capital ship bases)

-Shift the game back over to 24/7 gameplay (meaning rely less on have events on weekends or scheduled events, and create situations in the game where something of value is at risk. This will allow players to really participate in one side or the other over longer periods, in various ways. Sieges over bases (or in theory planets) could be over objects in orbit that are very strong like that of a Core 4 base. The point is to keep a realtime situation going letting people jump in and out of the action as it forms on its own.

-Combine this with new rules for events. All events should always allow for Freelancers! And not require registration. An event is not for you to build your list of battles, its to generate activity. An event should be something anyone can notice is going on, and jump in on, even if just as a freelancer. That's how faction members are born. But for close events with registration only, people are ridiculously preoccupied with perfectly balanced teams for starting fights. But really, that should be just to start things off, and expect people will notice a battle going on, and join in if they can. Especially since many would like to remain undecided until they know for sure they can make it, which is often at the last minute. As far as I'm concerned, events as they are have been in many ways scaring people away from joining in! Also, making players fight over real situations, despite the potential bad, is outweighed by the good. People show up for fights, balanced or not, when you need to defend your planet at all costs.

Picture a theoretical time in the future where we have all these things available and freedoms to go about participating in whats going on. Does that really sound worse than what we have? We have seen a lot of focus on changes to the map layout but I think people are fine with the maps and routes, the problem is population being down. That can be solved if people find out there's a lot of new stuff to do here, even with the same old ships and same maps. People could be trying to grow their factions, use bases to claim space, control routes and challenge each other for control of big resources. All the while we'd be able to use everything we have, that we can earn, to do the best for the side we choose.

So yeah you could actually spy in a cloaked vessel on new bases being built by factions trying to build territory, that are all doing a variety of things (generating and consuming) to keep their ability to use their FR going and maintain their space in other little ways like POB's. But to do all of this, we need to ditch the perspective of only caring about inconvenience in battles, and stop trying to block every activity to spare ourselves a bit of work or inconvenience. I see people constantly slipping in removing something or an ability to try to 'help' somewhere else (their faction or activities) and no one seems to have realized it all added up to completely sucking the life out of this place over the years. Time to wake up and realize that more freedoms, more options, brings more of everything.

I was thinking about leaving again for the longest time because I'm back to bouncing off the ceiling again, knowing all of the things we could be doing! But if we're going to see some serious changes soon, I'd like to be around for them. Especially since everyone who ever left figured it a waste to be here a while and then go because of a block that shouldn't be there.

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The Further Exploits of Captain Antares (August 2015) │ (alt) JonasHudson
*Argo | Special Operative ID (Approved Request)* | Argo Compilation Video
################ *Proposed OF Challenge System* ################
############### The Book of Piracy (Piracy Tutorial) ###############
############### Binski Alamo (Youtube Channel) ###############

[glassofwater]

-snip-

I honestly hope whoever makes the choices for these changes reads this and maybe can find something of value from your post. It's very well thought out and I generally agree with your stance but I have no experiences with player owned bases. But I figure why not allow the player freedom to do things other games dont provide? Why not let the spy be a spy? Thanks for taking the time to write all of that! If I could issue awards on here I would!

[Major.]

- Small amount of players.
- Double standards.
- People literally hating pirates.
- Total garbage RP from factions and players.
- No corp PvP because people are scared
- Dead houses except Liberty

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[Emperor Tekagi]

- Small amount of players.
- Double standards.
- People literally hating pirates.
- Total garbage RP from factions and players.
- No corp PvP because people are scared.

This minus one.
+ no Chonk ingame

[Karst]

I have left the game many times for various periods of time, and it never had anything to do with the game itself or the people in it (well, except the time I was indefinitely banned lol). I just didn't feel motivated anymore and felt like doing something else with my time - although of course, I always returned sooner or later.

I don't think there's much point in asking why people leave, because ultimately this is a tiny server and the global population of people that
- speak English well enough to play here
- are interested in sci-fi and roleplaying
- are willing to overlook the age of the game
is certainly within the thousands, nevermind the 150 server cap. The problem is really just a lack of advertising, if more of those undoubtedly existing people knew about the mod, there would be more of them here.

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[TheSauron]

For me personally, the hostility and malice some parts of the community display are the primary thing spoiling the experience. Sprinkle it with the sheer PvP skillgap (and a hardware bottleneck to boot), alongside the dev team's insistance on not giving minor factions (who I tend to play the most) any attention, be it story or events, and you get a mix that often makes me question why am I even still around.

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One MD Admiral