New Player Retention/ Cost of living

[Smoke1]

New player retention I feel has been hard recently I've been told by others and had conversations with some veteran players and new players Ic and OOC and I have come to the conclusion the economy that we have built is geared towards veteran players with money and 2k plus hours. To be a new player is extremely hard to navigate.  New players join the server with 10 grand have zero clue what to do and more than likely don't know anyone on server. Your 10k could be gone in the first hour or two if ur situation is bad. (example get hit by a car or dm at burger shot after you got some overpriced clothes or just bad luck/trolled and a visit to the hospital) and you log out an never rejoin. We live in a instant gratification world now and people need the stimulation. 

 Think about how much money you make around 6 grand per hr plus the 1k gov welfare thing doing the freelance jobs for the first little bit, you don't get taxed but when the taxes start coming in it's even harder.  You are having to spend over $1000 for food and drink. Fuel prices/Taxi are through the roof! sometimes 2k depending on the station that actually restocks their pumps. This all starts with the initial cost store and gas owners have to incur ordering. There should be a HARD CAP on prices. If you're a new player you buy your first car especially with these new repair scaling changes if you get rammed or crashed because you're not a good driver you're being punished financially for it. The cost to heal yourself at the hospital the cost for fuel the cost for food clothes, repairs all while having NO idea what to do and know NO body on the server??? It's to much and anyone would just move on. Regardless of how much i wanted to RP this isn't for me i can't spend 5+ hours a day online. The server extremely grindy for new players and quite frankly for everyone We aren't in covid times anymore.  I feel like we really need to change that and it starts with cost of living for everyone!!!  The biggest influx of credits are..  Sales, New limited of time cars, and NEW PLAYERS!!!!!

Let's say your a veteran you make 7-8k per hour as a legal and taxed 1/3rd of that 33% of 8k is 5.360 ish, now you get in an accident or trolled you spend half your hourly wage just fixing your car plus the medical bill or pain meds. (Because smoking a blunt is a crime your legal wouldn't dare risk it) and you haven't even had a bite to eat or drink! How does that make any sense!!! If your a crim you can chop, cook, free-lance it comes with a huge risk and most the time unless your allied with a lot of ppl ends in death, jail or robbed and huge losses are incurred in tickets jail time or weapons/drugs/car parts lost. A legal is stuck at a cap of 8k minus tax all while the cost of living has NEVER been higher. If your legal logs in goes to work and logs off you stack money because you don't spend much! IF you RP outside of work regularly then the money goes quickly. If you buy a new car or boat the 100+k to max the thing is wild.

In a roundabout way think if your just starting this server know NO body have 0 Information the cost/grind it takes to play here is to much. If you're a Veteran with 0 VIP you make 0 after food, fuel, 1 repair. Say you want to go out to the legal track after work with some friends and you have desync or bad corner your done 2500+ 3k for medical or some pain killers and food. All in all i feel there needs to be a change/ healthy discussion because the QOL we currently have just seems to hurt everyone with in game money.

Edited September 20, 2024 by Smoke1

[Jett_J]

+1 me broke 35% tax bracket hurt

[Quietthecutie]

-1
 

-Theres hourly support payments for the downbad so no ones ever broke for long.

-Prices are set as they should be, by the owner of the business. if the price is too high for you, move onto another store.

-Taxes suck, thats not a complaint thats a fact of life. 35% tax for higher brackets is pretty spot on.

The reason we make money is to spend it to live and keep making money and then save some on the side. you should feel the money coming in and going out thats an indication the economy is working as intended.

[Demonmit1]

There's two pain points that ive heard from newer players.

1. Map markers are not named, like freelance jobs, so being able to quickly pick up whats where isnt easy. some basic QOL to help new players navigate a bit easier would be a good step

2. license suspensions being 24 real hours. new players have no money to have spare cars. they get arrested, their one car is impounded, and they cant legally drive for 24 real hours. so they log off, as there's nothing they can do for the next day without likely getting in trouble again. they're unable to travel in a game that requires you to have a car, they're unable to do most freelance jobs, so they leave. fixing the suspension system from days to hours would be a big boost for player retention. 

[Bala]

It's easy to lost in the sauce but the simple reason that new player retention sucks is because the playing experience on the server if you are not someone involved in something established, just sort of sucks.

We continue to exist, at the level we do, because we have a serious amount of credit in the bank from people that have been here for multiple years and frankly, there has never been a serious competitor on RAGE-MP, for an English Speaking RP server. It's unlikely that anyone is going to sink enough development time into a server now, with GTA 6 fast approaching and barring a catastrophic decision which alienates a significant portion of the current player base, Eclipse will go the full distance, but it'll limp towards the finishing line.

Coming into the server in February 2019, the server got a hell of a lot of things right. It's script systems and overall direction were simple and easy to follow. The rules were not restrictive or confusing and while there was a learning curve for new people, it was quite small. The community was very much a shark tank but it felt less segregated.

That was the server five and a half years ago, now that is actually a really long time for RP servers and it's to NBDY / Osvaldon and the staff teams credit that we've got all that and more out of this, but these days, the direction feels like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.

I couldn't tell you what Eclipse is supposed to be now, ask 10 different people, get 10 different answers. How would you describe ECRP to a person that has never played here?

In that five and a half years, there was a FiveM boom and while the platforms are different, even the most basic plug and play RP servers on FiveM, have a number of dynamic activities like jobs that are aimed at people trying to make money (which on ECRP, for the most part is the new players.)

The economy is an established person's problem, not a new player's.  Your new player is going around, figuring shit out and making enough money to get a gun or a car or clothes to wear or whatever, so they are doing the menial jobs like trash, mining, hunting, roadworker etc..

Can you honestly say hand on heart that those jobs are engaging, as a solo player? There is no reward for persistence in those jobs, every instance of most of the jobs is the same, there is limited need for player-to-player interaction, there is no RNG elements or any RPG elements. There is also no integration for doing these jobs as a small group. 

Even the most basic FiveM servers have support for that. @Thang did an incredible new job that is something completely different to what we have and it's nowhere to be found.

Is there really a proper hangout for new players to get to know people on the server? You can give out all the free GPS' and not suspend a new player's license all you want, but ultimately, as a new player you have little to no emotional attachment or loyalty to this server, so if you don't enjoy it, why would you stay?

I don't even know why I've written this, because there is almost no chance that anything positive comes from it. I'm more likely to get reamed out for saying that the playing experience sucks, yet I've done everything I possibly can to try and drag the server into 2024 and I've got more ideas for how we could improve it than i know what to do with.

Like more and more of us, I'm here for the people that i've spent the last 5-6 years with more than anything, it'd be nice to be able to move the needle though. 

[Quietthecutie]

Honest to goodness i would love to see a revamp to the new player experience. I remember those early days and i didnt have a clue what was going on either. There are certainly a lot of ways we could make the new player experience easier. but at the cost of development in what is the twilight years of a fairly niche server.

That being said, there are a ton of guides and material available to the new player. all of which is outlined to them when they join the server, the forums, the discord. and the new player has to take a certain amount of responsibility for this too. if you are not willing to make the base amount of effort to grasp the fundamentals of the server and more importantly embrace the "find out ic." nature of the server, perhaps the server simply isnt for you. you should not be spoonfed. im a big fan of quality over quantity and honestly i dont feel like rping with someone who willfully decides to remain ignorant through their own actions. make the effort.

On the other points, I have a long history of supporting shorter licence suspensions, that hasnt changed. the map markers to my knowledge are left deliberately ambiguous to encourage players to explore and find out for themselves in game either through checking them out or interacting with people. it almost forces interaction, which is good. makes the server feel more alive. and fulfilling jobs come with taking out full time jobs with civilian factions. freelance jobs were always intended to be either stopgap jobs or for quick easy cash without having to wait for a weekly payday.

[Jaiden]

+1

[Smoke1]

12 hours ago, Bala said:

It's easy to lost in the sauce but the simple reason that new player retention sucks is because the playing experience on the server if you are not someone involved in something established, just sort of sucks.

We continue to exist, at the level we do, because we have a serious amount of credit in the bank from people that have been here for multiple years and frankly, there has never been a serious competitor on RAGE-MP, for an English Speaking RP server. It's unlikely that anyone is going to sink enough development time into a server now, with GTA 6 fast approaching and barring a catastrophic decision which alienates a significant portion of the current player base, Eclipse will go the full distance, but it'll limp towards the finishing line.

Coming into the server in February 2019, the server got a hell of a lot of things right. It's script systems and overall direction were simple and easy to follow. The rules were not restrictive or confusing and while there was a learning curve for new people, it was quite small. The community was very much a shark tank but it felt less segregated.

That was the server five and a half years ago, now that is actually a really long time for RP servers and it's to NBDY / Osvaldon and the staff teams credit that we've got all that and more out of this, but these days, the direction feels like throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.

I couldn't tell you what Eclipse is supposed to be now, ask 10 different people, get 10 different answers. How would you describe ECRP to a person that has never played here?

In that five and a half years, there was a FiveM boom and while the platforms are different, even the most basic plug and play RP servers on FiveM, have a number of dynamic activities like jobs that are aimed at people trying to make money (which on ECRP, for the most part is the new players.)

The economy is an established person's problem, not a new player's.  Your new player is going around, figuring shit out and making enough money to get a gun or a car or clothes to wear or whatever, so they are doing the menial jobs like trash, mining, hunting, roadworker etc..

Can you honestly say hand on heart that those jobs are engaging, as a solo player? There is no reward for persistence in those jobs, every instance of most of the jobs is the same, there is limited need for player-to-player interaction, there is no RNG elements or any RPG elements. There is also no integration for doing these jobs as a small group. 

Even the most basic FiveM servers have support for that. @Thang did an incredible new job that is something completely different to what we have and it's nowhere to be found.

Is there really a proper hangout for new players to get to know people on the server? You can give out all the free GPS' and not suspend a new player's license all you want, but ultimately, as a new player you have little to no emotional attachment or loyalty to this server, so if you don't enjoy it, why would you stay?

I don't even know why I've written this, because there is almost no chance that anything positive comes from it. I'm more likely to get reamed out for saying that the playing experience sucks, yet I've done everything I possibly can to try and drag the server into 2024 and I've got more ideas for how we could improve it than i know what to do with.

Like more and more of us, I'm here for the people that i've spent the last 5-6 years with more than anything, it'd be nice to be able to move the needle though. 

Nah I dont always agree with you but your input is good!! I hope to see the new job an I hope we can retain some new ayers some how!!

[Ritchie Stones]

been here almost 4 years now, things changed, also the mentality, I would say, there was a boom, and its called a trend, and trends go away, I feel like the RP trend is gone slowly by itself, also there was perfect storm with corona and people staying inside.

towards the new player base, I feel like they are more serious and staying, compare to the BS 4 years ago, where people where just joining doing the most horrible stuff, I would say, its different times also since the server has different goals, 

I can just after the private labs where implemented and it was times where everyone was rich making money. 
now everything feels more like it doesn't matter what you do, you just make slightly a bit more for far more risk.
its typical killing every game over and over again, trying to balance to much, 

even high end kinda sucks now, back then you put a kamacho it was gone in 1 day and full of competition,
now, its full of barely medium cars, never getting sold. and its full all the time.

even more to my surprise what I don't understand is that, housing has gone up triple, when money earning has gone down by at least -50% more aiming in crim life, 

its just different times, I see more civilians, I see less new players, but more likely to stay, burgershot is a hotspot
for new players, but many also kinda stay there, because its the more interactive area in what we seek online, 

I don't know what the future will bring, but I feel a slow decline over the years is coming, I have seen it in the last few years also.
i think the server has came to its point where it has to implement things like atm robbing with a car and GPS signal, to complicate things to avoid to much easy money, but in another way its just not worth doing so, because, we came from a point where we could make 500k in 4 hours in an apartment, so compared to that nothing will ever meet excitement again, 

also I feel like back then much more rp was actually done, and much more deals and business person to person was done, compared to now, when back then its was far less script dependant.

i kinda miss that "creative freedom" we used to have, altho the server back then around 2020 for example was in a very toxic mentality state, that has been better, but at what cost ?? the cost of making good money, thriving economy, manny interaction, I'm honestly bored, but I upkeep what I have in the server because I have good faith in it still after all those years, 

[Puzzling]

I can't lie when I first joined the server I just watched ECRP YouTube videos from uh Zez I think was his name (yes I know he got banned). I ended up going to some of the spots he went to and ended up at a Zeta car meet, it was like all the gangs back then doing races at the garbage track. I met a bunch of cool people and it just went on from there.

After I met those people I did some freelance here and there and borrowed a car from the "richer" people to race and hang out with when they were around. That pipelined me into working at a mechanic shop to repair for the racing people.

I haven't looked at what content is outside of Twitch streams, but I think getting some series on YouTube would help people get used to the server and what it is about.

I want to try a criminal character soon to see what that side of the server is like. You have to find the players who want to talk and make RP instead of the grind mindset. 

[olowepolo]

+1 I like the idea you have here. Unfortunately I think that if you lower fuel prices, increase gov pay then everything else will rise. I think everyone will increase prices for everything (cars, fuel etc etc) if they see gov bonus increasing and job wages increasing, and there isn’t really a way to stop that I don’t think