As I remember, me and some guy named Assazin were pretty active, hosting and server sitting on a regular basis. That's why we were allowed to join the GMs as trials.


I think TB needs a Uniteam. Not much I can do about that other than yap about it. You are the people with the resources and the ability to effortlessly bring projects into reality, so I find it quite ridiculous that suddenly it's my fault for not doing something about it.
If I were to host, that would cost me actual, hard cash, unlike you. I'm just a regular player, and this is the place for suggestions.


Why do we need a Godsquad to do events? Isn't that a GM's job as well?

Not trying to be harsh here, real life takes a priority. But if the job is too much, just recruit more people to even the workload, and don't deflect it to regular players to do your work. If you think that server sitting isn't important, just create a group where volunteers do just that. Whiiich brings me back to square one. *points at topic's title*

I'll have to talk with other people about it, so please don't regard this as any sort of official seal of approval of the idea:

It's been said copious times that Toribash's lack of success doesn't stem from people not trying out Toribash, but rather the steep curve making the retention rate of new players abysmal. This was one of the major reasons why I decided to create a formalized staff orchestrated YouTube channel where we could control the content and bring aide to new players learning the ropes from topics like "Why use the forums?" to "How do I improve at X mod?".

The GMs by far have the largest plate/load to handle than any other staff position. Risk knowing this, has obviously taken an initiative to increase the amount of GMs with this huge recruitment you see going on in the news, whilst also taking interviews, and even offering incentives for hard work and active hosting. I don't think adding server sitting to the list of their duties is a solid idea, and thus I like the idea of having a group in charge of it.

The problem lies with who these people will be. Typically mature, responsible, intelligent, and active members that are interested in helping the community are applying for GM. If they aren't a GM, it's usually because they were rejected for one or more rational applicable reasons. Because the team your proposing would be the real first direct staff encounter between new players and staff, we'd want to hold this group to an incredibly high standard (that's why the new GM team is so important). As it stands now the GM team IS the frontline to new players first interactions with Toribash staff.

And all of that sort of exhibits my concern: the people who have the personality, maturity, and experience to trust them with the serversitting job are the GMs. The GMs have a load of work on their plate as is, and while we're doing a great job of actively recruiting more staff, there really is only so many widely accepted applicants out there that the team agrees could be a valuable asset.




All of that being said: I think you raise some valid concerns and moving forward with the GM team I think Risk more than likely (although I don't want to speak for him as that'd be completely out of place) has this sort of thing in mind and once he holds the resources, would probably invest more into server sitting. So thanks for opening the topic.

First off i want to say my native language is german and even in german i write long complicated sentences that sometimes are hard to read. I hope that doesnt stop me , a literal noone in here, from stepping in and participating in this discussion.



I dont think that the matters discussed in here are the core problems repelling newer players. Actually i think the steap learning curve is one of the smallest problems newbies have to face when getting started in toribash. Playing against even opponents on whitebelt servers for me at least was a big pleasure and exciting thing, especially when hooking up with friends to see who could keep at the top the longest, while seeing the replays implemented in the client and several montages seen on youtube sparked the urge to once overcome these players... (ohh the childish ambitions)

The way in which this games community is structured ,and how to actually partake in anything you have to have a general idea of what the forums are and how to participate in them, is where i see the main problem in this subject.

If anything scares new players away IMO, its the immensely complicated absurdity of the terrible infrastructure toribash provides them.
The few people i know playing this game who progressed above black belt just dropped it afterwards because they never had the chance to find a solid place in the community. Theyre not mentally handicapped or sociopaths but either found the huge forums confusing to use or found it to be too complicated/straining to actually get any meaningful game related bond between newer players and older ones/also new players.

Every social interaction in the game is dependend on the forums. Heck we dont even have a friend system ingame. As someone who frequently uses the forums its hella easy to check in which server the guy you just met in a wushu server is right now, but maybe 70% of players who join this game never get to the idea of using the forums.

Of course the learning curve is hard, but to have the only system that gives new players the possibility to interact with eachother and find their place in this game, running paralelly to the actual game and not have it integrated is the thing that really keeps new players from improving. (and with paralelly i mean floating in orbit 1000km over sea level)

(That being said: The forums themselves are maybe the most beginner unfriendly place one could imagine)

And then to have the power to create clans, host tourneys and basically do everything desireable in the social toriverse, so unevenly distributed is even more pointless than that. (10tc per win do not feel fullfilling or like a desireable way to get money in this game)
Toribash community uses a free market exchange system which is fine(from the perspective of nabi studios), but social statuses and possiblities also come with the currency used in said system, which IMO(when talking about integrating new players into the game) is not fine.

The fact that playing to make TC feels like a 1€/hr job might frustrate players who would want to generally keep away from the forums. The fact that trading can be done in the forums alone and not in the client(talking about trading between people/mb market) might also feel a little bit frustrating. The way that it is now the only way to get something rolling atm is either having a really well organized clan or having shittons of money. Not giving newer players the slightest reward for their improvement besides their improvement is what made me quit this game over and over. The only current reward you get for playing this game is TC and Items. These are painful to obtain or just a upwards struggle if everything you do is just hop ingame and play a game or two.

People want to get feedback on their improvement. They want to see how they match up gainst other players. They want to get a feel of participation.
They want to be able to hold pride of their achieved skills and want to test themselves against others matching up with them. The thing that does that for everyone evenly understandable and accessable is a ranking system:

The ladder/elo system is horribly designed because you can only access it through the shoppage and it doesnt hold a key position ingame where you can see your elo at the beginning of each round in pale grey written in fontsize 8, for 4 seconds.
The only thing keeping players driving in a game designed to be a competitive 1v1 faceoff is the imo terribly designed marketsystem around it, while the only thing that should be is seeing themselves progressing on a scale that reflects their place in a community they can relate to.

When ive been playing this game for 2 years on and off ,and then stumbled into the forums (on this account my 2nd one)as a young prepubelescent ,therefore socially retarded person ,not being able to write a single meaningful word in english made me feel disconnected from the game. Bohoo thats sad indeed and it would be meaningless for the greater picture of the community if prepubelescent kids who never touched a videogame before and who speak rusty english actually didnt make 50%(rough cynical estimation) of the new players this game used to get.

You have to give these people a sense of connection with the game in a way that doesnt require them to spend 4hrs a day in a jungle of forumposts kept by sometimes understandingly exhausted and annoyed , often even rude or maybe elitist moderators that you are so afraid of. (i know you guys are actually nice i just want to describe how intimidating it used to be) Where you have to ,through struggle, find a group of people willing to accept you and help you out.

If we just had the possibility to give the players a sense of connection to the game...

If we had a market system accessable through the client;

(If we just had something like maybe a (generic level system input here) that gives players rewards but also clearly seperates low level players from mid/high level players:
E.g: Lets say you start getting elo/rank off from the point of reaching Brown belt: But this elo is globally ranked with a complete laddersystem around it publicly displayed and accessable for everyone. New players would feel the urge to become brownbelt and everyone above the urge to become better players to farm rank.
And then, lets say you get item rewards you can only get by playing the game and not through trade/tc.(dont tell me QI i mean items that are NOT purchasable [and also not terrible pls]) Items that make you achieve things through playing and forge a bond between you and your game.)[sorry its about 40C° in here my brain is slowly fading out]

If elo would be a relevant drive to keep players obsessed with getting better and getting rank was also implemented in the client as a core feature;

If Toribash was connected to ones steam account so you actually get the feeling of being related to your account which holds its spot in a running system thats also a closed circle;(also you prevent as previously said alt accounts joining beginnertournaments and what do i know)

If events, alltho still being posted and made public in the forums, were actually also given their place in the client for everyone accessable in public display.

If you could just access information about clans and friends and other players in the client (maybe even through the steam friendslist who knows...)

If just the forums wouldnt feel like 80% of the game with all the features that actually make the game not suck over time and if they just wouldnt slowly suck away any relation to the game the player has.

If we had all these things(which are only the little things my weak brain in this actually overwhelming community can think off) that spark excitement in new players we wouldnt have a GM/Uni squad that feels so oddly disconnected from its community. Because how will the GMs fix anything if the foundation they have to work on is the thing thats also the most broken of all.

Server sitting would just be frustrating and boring overtime and is defenitely not going to fix the root problem. AND DEFENITELY its not going to pull new players in en mass.

I think that this game actually is a huge commercial success if you think about it: because so far it seems like every efford has been made to make the game as unappealing as possible, and yet we are all here and somewhat in love with it.


If you think about any game thats currently big what does make these games big?

The community can feel connected with the game and with eachother and this connection strives the urge to be better and stay in the competition.(and possibly find a place in the community through that)
As you advance through the game you get rewards and you feel like you are achieving things.

I dont think that toribash as a game is the problem, the distribution of social possibilities is.

I see GMs and their respective predeccessors in the crossfire or participation of this discussion frequently for 4 years now, and still noone seemed to have figured out that the torisystem itself is twisted and needs to undergo strict reformation.
For the four years ive been here everyone keeps asking themselves why this game doesnt pull in more players. Why while being so fresh and fun to play, ,while having skill being such a rewarding thing in this game so many people lose connection to the game.

I see these questions so often and in 4 years time we managed to change practically nothing about the situation. Now that this game has Steam access i think its a big chance to change this. We just have to pick the right approach.


Regards and kisses L. ( i hope it was somewhat readable since i have hard time writing in english...)

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(on a side not: By the time Tori-agent Tonakai brought me into the forums. Back then he used to sit in the brown belt wushu server and do chitchat with lower players. Of course server sitting would help but for various reasons it has often shown to be only of limited success. I think you guys will have to change the scale of your effords).)

We tryed to avoid alts in "low belt tourneys", we used to check IPs after the tourneys and block all alts for future tourneys.

Serversitting was really good in my opinion, I used to help a lot of people but If you want to do that again, you need the right people, that's not an easy job at all!

That could be useful to show forums/tutorials and teach some basics about toribash.

But ye, we had alot of inactive members...

@Ynvaser:
Some regular players do something for this community, just look at the events' board. I was one of them during my 'regular' days: hosted dozens of cwtourneys and powastourneys, few events as well, most of if funded with my own TC. It did cost me both time and resources but that's something you can do if you are willing. I'll point at God Squad again - that's not 'staff' hosting team, even though they have few staff members in it. It's players' initiative that got some funding from various sources. Nothing stands in your way to serversit (that doesn't cost anything but time) or even to try to gather some people that share your thoughts and make a special org for that.
Anyway, as I and several other people pointed out, we are undergoing some changes and getting more people. Once we have enough of them, we'll think about how to help new players better.
I don't think I can add or say anything more, so I'll restrain myself from posting in this thread, but if you're willing to continue, send me a PM.

That's why when I was part of it we kept logs to "prove" ourselves and keep all of our activity documented. It was fairly efficient, but that's speaking from my personal experience. I think the minimum time per day was 30mins-1hr.

I thought it was pretty fun to do, but got boring after 3-4 months. I liked how a lot of us were from various places so we could speak a variety of languages and therefore help a range of new comers, that was cool.

I've been doing serversitting for 1 hour per day during some months, I've never got bored, that depends of the people...
But like the other staff positions, It's possible to recruit more people to keep it active.

Yeah who ran it back in the day?

Solax, Erth and Enzu...

agree on forum part (was not using it during 1st year of playing)
in general, yes, need new UI

server sitting - nope. it's a waste of time. compare amount of new players playing at one moment to % you can reach with server sitting.

integrated tutorials may do the job, or integrated tutorials for mods, but thats another thread