Are you guys meeting your financial goals?

Probably newcomers need something that made them love the world and the army, ppl need an "History" something that made play the game epic.

Right now you're just put into a fantasy anonymous world that only who loved the tabletop game know.

I would add some kind of short storyline of 4-5 mission at the beginning of the game where you gather up your company members and build your army. Something that explaine the story of your army and the wolrd situation.

This game LACK PATHOS! (at least for who never play the tabletop game)

I can definitely agree with Skydancer that some cinematic and story-telling could help new players get into the game. Along those same lines, instead of just some random Tutorials or after the Tutorials but before you let them loose in the PvP, you could have the new player select an army and the units they want to start with and then send them through a story driven PvE game mode where they get to level up their units and get some story behind them before playing the PvP. Which leads into my next idea.

Another thing to consider with new players leaving is the fact that they could be leaving due to loosing and then getting too frustrated to continue. At a deep physiological level people hate loosing. If new players loose more than they win early on, they have no vested interest, and will just leave. If there is some way to allow them to start the game with winning (PvE?) a lot more than they loose and getting connected to their army before you put them in the PvP where winning is much harder, that could really help. Just looking at a lot of successful games, the new player spends the first few days with the game just winning and advancing before they put them in a hard situation. I know the PvP nature of this game makes that hard, but winning is what hooks new players.

What both of those two said...

Another thing that could help keep players is comradery. currently there is no sense of this because there is no form of co-op or team play. I'm not sure exactly how to go about it but march of war for example; all the players in a specific faction are working towards a common goal. They form groups and push each other to work harder. Not saying march of war is perfect in this aspect but you can see atleast in the european alliance that players actually take up roles to co-ordinate other players. And the chat channels are pretty much always active despite being split between Global + Faction + Alliance. I'm just trying to say that the game needs some more reasons for players to come together and socialise while playing the game. Reading GG at the end of each match isn't enough.

This game, while really great and tactical, can be quite hard for casual players. The more skill and intelligence based game is - the less player will enjoy it unfortunately. Its why not exacly tactical RTS games are now much popular than turn based ones... because while you can learn builds or fast clicking - open strategy at micro-micro scale is something relatively hard IMO.

For keeping new players there should be some dumb AI-opponents simulating real ones from time to time

[Dr.Ido]

Hod, I definetly agree that the PVP nature of our game and the losing that comes with it, is not for everyone. But I think that this is what we are and that our game should be able to find players that are looking for this experience.

Of course, PVE can help a little to ease player into the PVP but ultimately I strongly believe that Dogs of War is PVP a game at its core and needs to be played this way to be fun. There are some great PVE tactical games out there, and they were designed with PVE in mind from the start (and sometimes they are not so great in PVP).

I don't tink that we could provide a really good and lasting PVE experience but I know that we can provide a great, albeit hardcore, PVP experience.

The issue with having both PVE and PVP modes is that many players who might have try the PVP if it was the only mode will play first in PVE, because it's less frightening and if they don't like the game, they'll leave before trying the PVP. And as you know, I think that our game is better in PVP... Also, if all the new players go to the PVE, then they are not in PVP and when they finally start playing in PVP they are greeted by veteran who kick their asses...

This is a very complicated issue

I agree a complicated issue. A potential solution, although it requires a continual large new user population, is getting much more strict with who new players play. When you are new, you only play new people. If you've only played less than five games, you only play other players who have played less than five games and so on until you get to a point where the current Match-Making takes over. I understand the wait times will increase for new players, that's why this would only work if the new player population is strong. But beyond this, what really is there? You can't handy cap new player versus experienced player or you'll piss off the experienced players. All you can do is try your hardest to make sure the experience level of the new player's opponent is right, so a new player gets to win at least half the time.

Random thought: if a new player loses multiple times in a row, if there could be some sort of education system that could tell them why they are losing (specific to them) and what they need to do to get better. This is much easier said than done, but just a random thought.

Do you guys feel that losing is a major reason why new players are leaving?

Do you guys feel that losing is a major reason why new players are leaving?

Well if many of us can win 5-6 games a row... someone must loose it... and i knew that can be really frustrating. But on the other hand keeps me strongly ingame because i fell that skill matters

You are a rarity then Dragon my friend.

Thinking about a post-game tutor got me also thinking about an in-game tutor. There could be a system that was available for new players that lets them know what would be a good move and what would be a bad move.
I was thinking about tabletop games and how when you are learning those, you are in an environment where you are either playing against a new player like you (your friend and you are both picking it up) or a situation where someone who knows more than you is teaching you. The two newbie situation is what I talked about earlier, but in the situation where the experienced player is playing the new player, in tabletop, most of the time the experienced player will let the new player know what would be a good move or say, "are you sure you want to do that?" before the new player does something stupid. This is because the experienced player wants the new player to enjoy the game and doesn't just want to pummel them (because then they would just quit and what is the fun in that).
You can't expect other players to do this in DoW, but if the game could, it might help out new players. Once again, much easier said than done. Just an idea.

Thinking about a post-game tutor got me also thinking about an in-game tutor. There could be a system that was available for new players that lets them know what would be a good move and what would be a bad move.

This is exactly what I do on a daily basis at 250 AP, the problem is... it is getting old and I'm getting tired of doing it, the chat system also doesn't help at all, taking the foucs from the text imput area every time you get a reply and having to type all over again if you weren't looking at the screen while typing. Also the timer usually doesn't help, some times the language is a big issue and some times is very hard for me to know who exactly is a new gamer from the start of the match (they should have a tag on their name for a week or something). I usually start a match saying hello and asking the player if he is a new player but... some players actually feel insulted by this question, so is a hard question to ask, I have to look at his units and see their levels but this can be very tricky too do to the fact that you can have level 3 units in a matter of 6-8 matchs or so and most people are really still just learning the mechanics at that point.

The issue with having both PVE and PVP modes is that many players who might have try the PVP if it was the only mode will play first in PVE, because it's less frightening and if they don't like the game, they'll leave before trying the PVP. And as you know, I think that our game is better in PVP... Also, if all the new players go to the PVE, then they are not in PVP and when they finally start playing in PVP they are greeted by veteran who kick their asses...

This is a very complicated issue

This is a very complicated issue indeed but I also think is true that we are lacking deepness? in the game world. I still honestly have no idea of what I'm playing after 3-4 months. There has to be a story behind the game for people to actually form a deeper link with the game's world. We need stories or animations of Heroes on epic battles, stories to explain why is the necro carrying his head on his hand all the time?. Why are Wolfs even fighting with Humans and Undeads, I don't know there is so much to be done in this area.

We also have the problem of no PVE usually the PVE doesn't have to be too deep, you can make it like a Tutorial giving the players situations and task to fulfill with higher rewards for the first time is completed and then just smaller rewards for doing it again, not just renown. You will be amazed at the amount of players that join this game and they are on their 3rd or 4th fight and don't even know how to use the player commands and they finish a turn using of. stance without target or wave on their last unit activation. Thing is don't use a "Tutorial" word to teach the game to people, a lot of people hate tutorials and just press ok, ok, ok, ok without reading or skip it all together, that's why using a story mode is easier to make them actually learn something with just giving them tasks.

I don't know what else to do honestly to help you guys out, I really am at a point where teaching new players can be fun but also take my playing time away from me, I know nobody asked me to do it, I just do it because is fun and feels good if I can help the game keep 1 player even if I see other 5 never coming back.

Maybe like Hod said it would be a good idea to make some random dumb AI players that will only show for players that have this "new player" tag I was talking about before. They can make money that way, have fast queues and feel better about themselves just by winning their first matches.

I love the game and honestly wish there was more players helping teach new players how to play the game in 250 AP.

Also guys, please, please, please use the Global chat, even if just for saying hello or make bad jokes the dead chat is honestly a huge turn off for some people, they see a dead chat and they just leave. This is how it goes: "Greetings"... silence, "is anybody there"... silence, after a 3-5 minutes queue (that is huge for any PvP game I have seen) the player thinks the game is dead and he is wasting time. Also big part of the Chat problem is the system it self.

Dear devs chat shouldn't be cut off the moment you get a match, you can't even tell people you will be right back after the match, the match pop up and just takes over the UI and you can just accept or cancel it, if you cancel you have to wait on queue forever again but if you accept you just never talk again after half an hour. So please try to make a better chat system that will let you tell people you won't talk for a while or that it resumes with everything that was said while you were fighting, believe it or not is very important that people see there are other people in the game aside from themselves.

The thing that draws and hold many people to a company skirmish game is investment in your units. What I feel is missing from the game is that the units are not taking a on a life of their own. More variety in the gameplay and more real world affect for the company would be a way to approach this.

I wish I could actually tell you how to achieve this but for some reason the digital version don't seem to evoke that same response as models you play on a table. The reason I mention this is that I have played in systems where you have pre assembled, pre painted models. The systems were usually bland but somehow you still connected to the company you built.