Haven and Hearth is not appealing for new players

[FrankMcFuzz]

Please don't get me wrong. I've played for a decade and I love Haven. However, I have never in my life had so much difficulty attracting players to any game. I have had more success with Dwarf Fortress; That's when you know there's a problem.

I don't think the issue is with Haven itself, but in its presentation: How it appears initially, and in the first few hours. I have identified the common issues below.

• The trailer on the front page is outdated, unappealing, and not-representative of the bulk of the game
  I get that you made it the same as the Legacy Haven trailer which is cute, but Hafen is a lot different and the trailer doesn't properly represent the game as it is. I've had people crap out at this stage saying "No thanks, looks like a shitty Facebook game" after watching this trailer alone. It would be a lot better to include the World 12 trailer in this main slot, and rotate it each reset with the current world. I surveyed a few people who don't play Haven without context, "Which is better" between W12 trailer and the one on the website; and all noted that the W12 trailer is more interesting and better paced.
  
• Almost every player will jump into the fire on their first character, and miss the charter stone
  Even when I say "When you get to the wizard, stop" people will still spawn, then I tell them they have to start again and they get frustrated. A simple tooltip or warning, and a quick mention of what a wilderness beacon is and how to make one will keep newer players engaged.

• The tutorial is downright bad
  This trips players up: vets know it's not important, but it's the first thing players can see as a 'goal' and it feels good to accomplish. I could write, direct, and star in a Netflix miniseries based solely on the Hafen tutorial, but let me summarise with the below key points where I find new players getting frustrated.
  
• It's extremely specific - Not every area has access to birch trees, and now that there's so many different tree types, players may not be able to find a birch bark tree amongst the others AND then it may not have any bark left on it anyway given its use in curios and string. Use tooltips and pictures or make the bark cup built from any bark.
• It's self-sabotaging - Asking players to 'eat until healing' may not be a satiation concern for new players who don't get the satiation system, and will probably quit anyway, but it is definitely an issue given the sheer amount you have to find and eat as a new player. This should be "Eat until you gain an FEP", because they won't need to eat 60,000 chestnuts and apples to accomplish it.
• There are no pictures - You could use popup windows to show off pictures from late game; this adds allure and gives players something to aspire to. Say, on the birch tree one, just show a birch tree in a paved town wall next to a stone mansion. "Oh boy" says sprucecap soon-to-be, "I get to build a cool base? Nifty." It's a little, but it would help.
• It cannot be simply skipped - place an abandon quest button when you click it, and preferably change this to say "Skip Tutorial" if possible.

• It ends
  It finishes before going over everything. It's so weird that it doesn't tell you how to progress in the game, but it does tell you about lifting things! OH GOOD. Players then feel lost and keep asking me "Now what do I do.". Then they ask for clothes then immediately log off with them forever.
• It doesn't cover the FEP system at all
• It doesn't cover studying, curios, or mental weight at all
• It doesn't cover how to unlock skills or abilities
• It doesn't tell you what you should do

Overall, there's a lot you can change about the presentation without needing to change all that much about the game. TBH, if you change anything, please just change the trailer on the front page lol.

Also yes, I am only making this post because I want someone to help me cook food but nobody wants to play >:C

Edit; added a curio point in the section about what's missing.

[MagicManICT]

I'm going to first say that there's a balance to "giving some direction" to exploring, and hand-holding. I'm really old school, and some of the bullshit I have to wade through to play a mediocre game that I've played a dozen or more identical to it before "because new players" is atrocious. Skipping tutorials is common now, but every game seems to do something just a bit different that you have to play through the tutorial for or RTFM to find (if you can even find a manual to RTFM). I liked it back in the day when Rogue was a new game and amazing, or all you needed was a 4-way stick and one button. (Ok, a second button was a great addition. Thanks, Nintendo, but you went overboard when you gave us 6!! buttons.)

If players need that much of a walkthrough to learn a game, a well written guide on the forums or web page (such as the RoB wiki) would much better serve than what can be done in game. I'd say when Sevenless's guide was kept up to date, we had far fewer questions, and there were probably a lot more people that stuck around to the next world. I'm sure there were a lot of people that left because Haven really is a niche game that seems to fit only a few of us.

You do make some very solid points. FEP definitely needs to be included. The spawning room 'guide' could be branched--jump in the fire, inherit first, or find your way to spawn at a wilderness beacon or charter stone. "Buying skills" is mentioned in it, you have to buy a skill to make the stone axe, but maybe it could be a bit more to it. Raising skills could be added in some way, just like FEPs.

As far as "what to do," I think the following could shoot down 3 birds with one stone. The next quest after the current last one could be: 1) raise exploration to a score of 5, raise survival to a score of 5; 2) Gain a point (or two) of Perception by eating the right foods--just gain one with no actual required food items, but say "eat the right foods so that maybe players will think to pay attention to the food scores and figure that out; 3) "Play long enough to hear a whisper on the wind" so people know more is coming (10k LP earned and a bit of time, forget off the top of my head).

[shubla]

I sometimes wonder what the game would be like now if you were a new player.
Without wiki you couldn't really do anything, treating wounds without custom client/wiki telling you which aids to use would be difficult etc.

I don't think that Hnh has ever been a game that you could just stumble upon and start playing. You have to be introduced to it by some friend to learn the basics. Or then be a smart player who knows how to use wikis and find information etc.

Lack of new players is a bit concerning though. I don't think that I know any people who would have played the game for less than a few years...

[wonder-ass]

an indepth tutorial before you use the fire that spawns you in the actual world should be a thing.

things that the tutorial could explain.

• credos
• hunting
• death
• attributes skills and abilities (investing lp in shit like exp/surv and not marksman or stealth)
• hhp/hp
• wounds and how to heal
• how to properly eat
• how to progress early stages
• HOW TO PVE/PVP AND HOW TO ESCAPE!
• how fucking dangerous water and the ocean is

the first few hours are the most important to actually hook someone on. havens first few hours for a noob is basically running in the forest putting points in random shit if you got that far and then quit because you got bored.

[Headchef]

an indepth tutorial before you use the fire that spawns you in the actual world should be a thing.

things that the tutorial could explain.

• credos
• hunting
• death
• attributes skills and abilities (investing lp in shit like exp/surv and not marksman or stealth)
• hhp/hp
• wounds and how to heal
• how to properly eat
• how to progress early stages
• HOW TO PVE/PVP AND HOW TO ESCAPE!
• how fucking dangerous water and the ocean is

the first few hours are the most important to actually hook someone on. havens first few hours for a noob is basically running in the forest putting points in random shit if you got that far and then quit because you got bored.

Agree

[Procne]

an indepth tutorial before you use the fire that spawns you in the actual world should be a thing.

things that the tutorial could explain.

• credos
• hunting
• death
• attributes skills and abilities (investing lp in shit like exp/surv and not marksman or stealth)
• hhp/hp
• wounds and how to heal
• how to properly eat
• how to progress early stages
• HOW TO PVE/PVP AND HOW TO ESCAPE!
• how fucking dangerous water and the ocean is

the first few hours are the most important to actually hook someone on. havens first few hours for a noob is basically running in the forest putting points in random shit if you got that far and then quit because you got bored.

Not really a good idea to do it before entering the fire. Imagine how much time you would have to spend in game to go through all those topics, only to have your progress removed when entering the fire. If you don't remove the progress you make it open for abuse.

The tutorial should assist you as you play the game. Walls of text explaining features that the player cannot "touch" yet (credos, wounds, hunting, PvP) are useless. Such tutorial info should happen as player gains access to those.
In fact, we could do without tutorials completely if the game properly explained its mechanics (tooltips, "?" buttons etc.). It has become better at it over the last few years, but it's still miles away from being playable without wiki / forum guide.

[Ardennesss]

Said it before, all they need to do is use the existing "starter" quest, turn it into a chain, and use the experience event popups to explain things and guide people. The new player experience is absolutely atrocious, we're on w12 and people still die and create new characters having no idea inheriting is a thing that they must do, because it's not explained anywhere in-game. Put a giant fucking beam of light over the grave cairns on char creation that can be inherited and a warning prompt when you try to burn in with an active ancestor. This shit isn't hard to fix, stop being lazy.

[SnuggleSnail]

I think getting KOed and having to hearth instead of right click a fire would go a long way, tbh.
That said, those mechanics change every now and again, and I doubt it would get updated

[Ardennesss]

I think getting KOed and having to hearth instead of right click a fire would go a long way, tbh.
That said, those mechanics change every now and again, and I doubt it would get updated

Big true, KO and hearthing home should be in the tutorial for sure. So many people die because they don't notice the little ding that tells them they can hearth home.

[vatas]

The Character Ceation Room is probably designed with being thematic and generally nice-looking as first priority. Before tutorial quest "burn in fire" was added, many people probably never made it out. I don't remember my first time spawning in hafen but I most likely didn't immediately realize it on my own.

Also the Skullpole (or "Spawn Charter" as it's called in text pop-up) for Wilderness Beacon spawning wasn't added until w9, meaning that design-wise, it's an afterthought.