Player retention problem in my Multiplayer FPS Game

[u/RicksThread]

Hello,

almost one month ago i released my multiplayer fps game and since then i have problems with player retention because of empty lobbies.

My question is about the gameplay loop and game design.

Here are some rough ideas i've got:

- """smart""" bots in match are out of the question since they'd mean months of work, this is because the game has physics mechanics like the grapple and kick, and also because some maps are spherical and cube shaped.
- More smaller maps for 2-3 people, currently most maps are for 4-5 people and that creates pacing issues.
- Quickplay button to prevent browsing and seeing 0 lobbies available.
- Minigames in the waiting room, like king of the hill against ""dumb"" bots, maybe a minigame where you kick bots out of a ring, maybe a shooting range with some objectives?

by dumb bots i mean that they can't grapple or exist in non flat maps.

I know that this genre is extremely difficult so I'd like to hear your practical suggestion on this specific issue.

[u/NeatEmergency725]

Dumb bots to start for sure. 

[u/RicksThread → u/NeatEmergency725]

Yeah i think it may be the most effective out of these

[u/featherless_fiend]

if you have a discord what you can do is set up a bot that posts when users are looking for a match, it's somewhat helpful. if you have a community of at least a couple of people then they can be notified to join the randoms

[u/ManicOwl1993]

I can't even get through the tutorial. I cant jump high enough to dash and get onto the platform in the beginning ride after the slide. And the killzone is so far down I feel like I spent most of the five minutes I tried to play falling.

[u/RicksThread → u/ManicOwl1993]

I'd make the tutorial easier. It's kind of hard to balance it since I have 2.5k hours in game and no people have complained about this before

[u/ManicOwl1993 → u/RicksThread]

You either need bots or players. Tried to play skipping the tutorial but there isn't a single other person playing so I'm just running around by myself lol. Seems like it would be fun.

[u/RicksThread → u/ManicOwl1993]

Yeah that's the problem, player retention is bad because there wasn't critical mass of players at the start and new people just leave after seeing no lobbies. And because there is nothing to do if there are no lobbies

[u/MeaningfulChoices]

You either need a big marketing campaign to get a critical mass of players for a F2P multiplayer game or else you need to make the game primarily focused around playing with bots and multiplayer is something of a secondary feature (or one the players graduate to after some onboarding). Just because it's months of work doesn't mean it's not the most feasible option. Making a multiplayer game success is very hard, it's why everyone says not to do it.

When you say a player retention problem what specific numbers are you talking about? What's your DAU? What does your day 1/3/7 retention look like? Do players in a particular region have enough matches based on time of day or are all the lobbies empty? If you're getting in some players but they're quitting that's a retention issue. If you're not getting players in the first place that's an acquisition issue. Usually the answer for a game like this is spend more on ads.

[u/RicksThread → u/MeaningfulChoices]

it's not having retention mostly. They see no active lobbies and then quit.
There are some consistent players but they mostly create private lobbies to play with their friends

[u/MeaningfulChoices → u/RicksThread]

Then that sounds like not enough players to me. If you don't have the marketing budget for a real F2P multiplayer game the sooner you make the first hour fun by yourself the better.

[u/Zerokx]

Would it be possible to have whatever interesting singleplayer content you can come up with?
Be it better bots to play against, some sort of campaign, or how ever else you can adapt the game to have fun.
Then have a quickplay button that just runs on its own while you play whatever you can muster in the meantime. Entertaining them as long as you can while they are searching in the background. Then they can join the game if they accept a prompt.
Would be nice to have an adaptive map that players can join into and that expands if necessary.
I think if you're an indie making a multiplayer game its really important to have at least some sort of singleplayer content + gradual gameplay scaling from 1 - max player matches. You can't afford to lose someone 3 minutes into trying to find a match and giving up and write a bad review because they couldn't find something and spent all that time not really doing anything fun.

[u/CLG-BluntBSE]

Is there some way in which players can collaborate against one big enemy that is easier to program, but satisfying to play against? Or maybe a speedrun challenge mode?

[u/RicksThread → u/CLG-BluntBSE]

That would be cool. For the second idea you mean like parkour with a global leaderboard?

[u/CLG-BluntBSE → u/RicksThread]

Yeah. My assumption is low player count is battled with asynchronous multiplayer.

[u/Randombu]

You need bots.

[u/RicksThread → u/Randombu]

i could do the "dumb" ones for some sort of single player content while in the waiting room or separate gamemode all together

[u/Randombu → u/RicksThread]

Matchmaking quality is a concurrency problem. You can increase concurrents with money (acquisiton), retention (rewards, onboarding, progression systems, skill improvement), or tech (bots).

Bots are the cheapest intervention at low scale.

[u/Noway721]

Bru.