Whatever happened to the New Player Pit?

[Meric]

A few days ago my Lich killed a guy on his very first spawn because he had the misfortune to step into the building I was in. He hasnt logged back in since. Feeling bad :/. Obviously some people stay, some go, such is life but it got me thinking about new player retention.

IIRC, during Breath 3 you initially spawned in a small map (10x10 diamond?) with all the primary resource buildings and wandering basic pets to attack. You stayed there until Level ~3 and then spawned into the proper map. I believe it was called "The Pit" back then. Similar to how we all experienced Port Hope at the start of this breath.

I really liked this mechanic as it created a space that was relatively safe, xp heavy and accessible before being dropped into the major world where you turn into a kill stat for a passing VW.

I know we have parachuting into factions now but it does feel like having such a space again might support new players especially as Cordillera is rather expansive.

So Im curious as to whatever happened to its usage and is it something that might be utilised in the future?

[Repth]

I wanted each level 1 character to (re)spawn in Port Hope for exactly this reason, but it didn't quite sell.

[Kandarin]

I wasn't on the devteam until late Breath 3, but my understanding of the New Player Pit in Breath 3 was that it faced several issues:
- After the initial early-breath rush of returning players trying to level their characters out of the pit ASAP, it was really sparse and unwelcoming, and was a challenge to level out of without player-character targets.
- The resource buildings weren't actually good resource buildings.
- Even low-level pets were seriously overtuned vs. low-level characters. You have to spend AP and they don't.
- The theming of the B3 Pit was alarming and unfriendly due to how gruesome it was.

We could make a more welcoming new-player-starting-zone space, but the issue with any such space is that dropping new players alone onto the street anywhere gives the impression that Nexus Clash is a game about your lone, solo journey with faction participation as a fluffy take-it-or-leave-it extra. In truth, Nexus Clash is a game of faction cooperation and conflict with factionless play as an extra-challenge hard mode. Making a factioned start opt-out instead of opt-in and putting people into strongholds at the start communicates this reality better and signals better that they should reach out for (and expect!) help from other players.

[Nayru]

- The resource buildings weren't actually good resource buildings.

think that's something that's been a thing that could've been worked on since nexus immemorial heyo why did i have to remove a higher % find weight in things that had absolutely nothing do with guns out of a 'gun store'