So I've been thinking about this a bit and wanted to outline my thoughts as best I can to see what people thought.

First, I was pondering the post on new player forum. New players starts, gets waxed repeatedly in pk, feels like there is no RP, gives up leaves. Now there are many reasons he could have been losing PKs, but one that certainly happened is that he was so outclassed the opposing players skill as to make it nearly impossible to win. For instance, if I was racing NASCAR against (I had to look this up) Dale Earnhardt, it wouldn't much matter if we were both driving top of the line cars, or if he was driving a VW beetle. I'd probably still lose. I just don't have the expertise at driving that he had. The reality of the situation is that if I were trying to race against Dale Earnhardt he would have the top of the line car because he's earned it and I'd be driving the VW beetle because that is what I can afford.

So applied to CF you end up with me, a vet for the purpose of this discussion, hunting a new player and killing him easily. Not only would I probably be able to kill him with fine leather and a practice weapon, even if he was well geared, but the exact opposite is probably true. I am well geared and he has fine leather, widening the gap further. Frankly, I've put in the 10,000 hours. I'm an expert and he is not. This is the only result that makes sense from a competitive standpoint.

If I take this to the logical(ish) conclusion, I feel like you end up with a game like chess where a few hardcore experts at 10,000 hours+ can have some truly epic matches against each other. Except in this case, they play on a website that pairs them up randomly with people, so a significant portion of the time, they are just brutally destroying some 12 year old kid that just learned how to play chess and thought it might be fun to play someone online. Yes, the 12 year old could see how woefully unprepared for their opponent they are and work to improve their skills (but they probably won't due to DK effect) or they might decide the game is stupid and give up, or that "knights are overpowered" or something equally ridiculous.

I think this *does* happen in CF, but it isn't nearly as bad as something like chess. So I asked myself, Why? Self, I answered, because chess is a static game with exact rules and nothing ever changes. One can become a true expert at it and so long as you are putting in as much time as anyone else, there really is never a reason you can't remain at the very top of the field indefinitely. This isn't exactly the case with CF. Why? Because CF changes constantly.

However, while not as bad as chess, I would opine that CF has been drifting that direction for some time. There is a general lack of major changes to the game. So my "expert" knowledge of how to play a warrior from 4 years ago is probably pretty close to current were I to go play a warrior now. I would even argue that this is somewhat necessary to retain players and let people fully explore the options available. But, there are ways to set everyone back to zero again without completely changing the essence of the game. I think the ranger revamp is probably a good example of this. Old-style rangers still exist exactly as they did before. If you had expertise or were building it as forester survivalist, you can still play that combo and have it play exactly as before, but plainsrunner hunter plays so much different that while some of your expertise will translate, it isn't going to give you as big a leg up over a new player who rolls up his first character and goes "Cool! I want to play an archery character."

I think the new seasonal races is a good step in this sort of direction. From my perspective, I can't figure out how Frost giant doesn't play exactly like Fire Giant +1 con, but boy did it look like Frosties were getting their #### kicked in by that fire vuln. Each new race plays differently than any other (or I have faith that you wouldn't bother with them) so while that doesn't set anyone who plays it back to a newbie, they are certainly closer than when Twist plays his next giant sword spec. The trick is to have something that makes it different enough that not only do people not know how to play it (resetting the expert timer), but people also don't know how to play against it. I imagine this was one of the problems with Frost Giants. People knew how to fight "guy with fire vuln" and "giant" better than "giant with fire vuln" knew how to defend themselves.

Another area where this could be improved is in new areas. I will be the first to admit I'm not big on exploring. For the purposes of my example I'm going to pick on Enpolad's Garden. This isn't because I don't like it, but rather because I knew Chessmasters perfectly and liked a few very specific things from that area that are gone/changed now. That said, Enpolad's is very similar to old Chessmasters. While I understand the desire to leave a long standing area with some of the same stuff it always had, it doesn't reset the playing field as much as I'd like (for the purposes of this discussion, not what I actually enjoy. #### multi-line look descriptions that I have to comb through to find items). Enpolad's is a superior area in almost every way except one. My knowledge of chessmaster's meant that I had a significant leg up over any newbie exploring that area for the first time. It would be better if we were both wandering blind, IMHO.

So, all that being said, I think if the Imm staff made a concerted effort for one major change per year (and could continue with current rate of minor changes) we might be able to grow, expand, and keep our playerbase better with old and new players alike as the experts lose some of their advantages (but of course can regain them like anyone else) and newbies enter on a slightly leveler playing field. New stuff also generates good buzz (as opposed to say douche bag player behavior and imm conspiracy nonsense) which would also help attract, retain, and recall players.

What's that I hear? Shaman revamp on the way? :)

Thanks for taking the time to read my wall of text,

Tac

When I was younger I really enjoyed MTG (Magic: The Gathering), which is a pretty difficult game to be "really good" at. First you need to overcome the learning curve of the rules and basic strategy of the game, which I'd rate at medium/hard in terms of card games. Then you need experience and knowledge to build effective decks and play them properly against other skilled players. Lastly, you need time and/or money. Building a few very strong decks can be expensive. Getting to the point where you can compete at a "tournament level" (which I never did) in MTG isn't like being an Olympic athlete, but it's not trivial either.

There are, however, many other card games that have far simpler rules, require little to no "collecting", aren't nearly as competitive in nature, don't rely so heavily on strategy and acquired knowledge, and so on. I've been introduced to card games like these and within minutes, I was having as much fun as I would playing MTG, albeit a slightly different kind of fun.

When I first started playing MTG it was a lot of fun. I knew the basic rules and had a piece of #### "starter deck" containing mostly stock cards and a few additions that added no strategic value to my deck but were there purely because I thought they were "cool" cards. I either lost repeatedly or won only because I was playing someone as ignorant as me. As I got better and more experienced, the "fun" of MTG shifted from being about a mere game to being about building powerful decks, winning games, and improving my strategy.

When I first started playing CF it was a lot of fun. I had Galadon directions sticky-noted to my CRT monitor and I had no ####ing idea whatsoever that half-elven axe "spec" (I use quotes there because I never made it to 20) was a terrible choice. I was pathetic, but that was okay. As I got better and more experienced, the "fun" of CF shifted from being about a mere game to being about winning more fights, knowing more quests, finding more secrets, and other quantifiable "power gamer" type stuff.

Ultimately, what makes CF appealing to the people that matter seems to be the things that make it unappealing to people who just want to sit down, get a fifteen minute lecture on how the game works, and enjoy a few games on a relatively level playing field. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just the nature of a small game having its niche. Changing CF in ways that would make a player like that happy without changing it in ways that would make its existing players (and staff) less interested is not a trivial goal.

tl;dr: It's really hard to "fix" this problem without turning CF into the kind of game you probably wouldn't have chosen to dedicate yourself to in the first place. CF can't attract every player or keep every player in attracts, and that's okay.

In my opinion, the failure of CF to keep new players isn't the learning curve itself, it's the lack (or poor quality) of the resources available to new players. Far more important than rejiggering game mechanics or anything like that in effort to benefit new players is simply making more information available to them in a way that is easy to digest. I don't mean wand locations or pseudo code that describes every check parry makes, but rather a more complete, succinct "tutorial", if you will. The New Player Guide (or whatever it's called) that hasn't been updated in a decade was a good effort, as was the official Wiki. I think the not-so-new-anymore website is a fair resource, but probably not nearly good enough for a true "green horn" either. Likewise, there is some good info on the forums, if a little out of the way and hard to find. Reorganizing all that information and making it available somewhere would probably be the most impacting thing anyone could do to help new players without changing CF in ways most of us probably wouldn't want to see it changed. It's also a pretty tall order and not the kind of job that I think the staff has the time or frankly, the care for.

RE the original post:

I don't necessarily think changing things up regularly benefits new players a whole lot since at the end of the day, they need to learn all the same things the vets need to re-learn, and the vets certainly have a leg up on them in terms of doing that quickly and effectively.

For what it's worth though, I don't think CF is hurting for "new content" right now. We've seen a ton of new areas in recently, as well as a pretty high volume of code changes (at least relative to the past few years). I wouldn't start writing neo-shaman rules just yet, but you never know.

I wasn't suggesting changing the game such that someone can sit down for 15 minutes and have a good time on a relatively even playing field to people who play a lot. Rather, I was suggesting that what we have is a bit like Chess, and what we need is an ever evolving game of Fischer Random Chess. Vets would still have an advantage. They know how the game works vs. newbies, but what they don't know is exactly how new thing X works. It is part of why underplayed race/class combos sometimes enjoy some really good success even from a player you wouldn't expect it. Their enemies don't realize their capabilities and die expecting a different kind of fight. I'd say there is a perfect example of this going on in-game right now.

I agree that we aren't hurting for new content. I think that what we are hurting for is "game changing" content. To use your MTG example. I'm suggesting right now we have monsters and traps, but what if the game introduce buff cards, and then what if they did de-buff cards, and then what if they introduced a new kind of monster that operated differently than other monsters, etc. etc. It wouldn't change the fact that having an awesome deck and the knowledge of how to use it would be an advantage, but it would mean your deck would have to be ever evolving and new players and vets alike would be struggling to learn the latest tactics and cards abilities etc. It doesn't even the playing field, but by moving the target, you make people re-aim.

I suppose my chess example looks better if you say, Fischer Random Chess, but every once in a while, we are going to add a new kind of piece, with different movement rules or something. Like the ninja-pawn. Capable of swapping with any friendly unit and moving directly forward only. Chess looks a lot different with that piece in play, even if you know how all the other ones work perfectly. It changes the dynamic.

Even as an intermittent player over the years, I've found the disparity of knowledge of equipment and preps between someone like me (who played the first day CF opened) and off and on over the years with the current hard-core serial players and the rank newbies.

What I've noticed is that it does look like most of the rewards, both in PK advantage and in Immortal rewards are garnered by the serial players to the detriment of newbies.

What about a revamp of the current attitudes of the Immortals to reward PC's that are vets who purposefully gimp their character to make it more challenging? I'm not talking about flaws per se, but rather making role choices and gear/ target choices that are anti-power gaming rather than trying to set a new PK record by waxing everything that moves that can even marginally be justified. Having Imm rewards for choosing this path might help develop more niche characters that will never roll over everyone in range but can still be successful within a narrow range of enemies.

The way the game is structured now, it simply is geared pretty much entirely toward vet knowledge for the vast majority of in-game perks whether it's the nifty gear, PK'ing success or Imm awards like virtues, legacies, quest forms, spells, tattoos, etc..

Years ago when I was an Imm, I tried to make it a point to almost randomly award perks to PC's that were doing what I viewed as appropriate RP'ing, particularly to those who hadn't been receiving any other perks. Though I will admit that my role as an Imm was focused on role-playing (as it was viewed at the time), religion and cabal politics, I didn't do any coding or area writing. The upside of that was that it freed me up to watch a lot more PC's and interact more freely with them.

But that's just my humble opinion.