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I feel like there's a serious misunderstanding of how Toribash community (or any game community in general) works.
There's only a tiny fraction of Toribash players who are actively involved in community discussions on forums / discord, which is kind of the norm for any videogame.
And then there's a small number among those players who would also potentially want to do something to help the game, which is completely understandable as people would likely just want to chat with others and not actively contribute to the game in any other form.

Now factor in the current size of Toribash community and you get like several dozen people total who'd be open to making events, contributing to moderation, etc. Typically around a half of those people would not be exactly suitable for staff work for various reasons - because their past history does not allow us to trust them not to abuse their staff permissions, because they put zero effort into their staff application making us question whether it even makes sense to bring them aboard or they'll forget they even applied by the time teams have finished reviewing all apps, etc.

What you're left with now is a few dozen people in the whole community who want to contribute as staff, are serious about their intentions and do not have questionable past in the game. And they all still have their real lives to take care of - which is always a priority over volunteer work in a video game.

So yeah, far from "everyone just becomes staff".



Not exactly sure what exactly is being praised here because you kinda missed it, but if it's about Blind Fight mode then yes, it could potentially be a better entry point for new players as it's easier to get into compared to classic multiplayer.



Pretty much pulled it out of my ass, but that's not really the point.

Running a proper ad campaign takes time, work and money. You don't make a successful ad campaign with good conversion rate by just compiling a bunch of replays into a video + buying some banners on AdSense. There's a reason there's a whole industry build around marketing and neither hampa nor I have enough experience to manage a real marketing campaign. So realistically, in order to run a campaign that will not just be a waste of money because it'd bring 1 new player for every $0.33 spent (standard Google Ads CPI rate for Android app ads) - who will then drop out in 15 minutes with a 95% chance, - we'll need to hire an actual team to prepare, manage and monitor that campaign.

These people need to conduct a research to determine the suitable target audience, get the actual ads ready and so on, and as you can expect that's not something done in a single day. They also obviously need to get paid for their work. Say we live in an ideal world (probably not gonna happen) where the team we've found is from a third world country (so their pay isn't $5K/mo per person), they're quick and efficient and get everything done in about a month - bringing us to $4-5K spent on preparations alone.

Now ok, we launch the campaign. Let's stick to that $0.33 cost-per-install rate and assume it's around the same for installations on PC, so we can get 3 users per $1 spent. Assuming we hit a good target audience and improve dropout rate so it's 2 times lower, we end up with something like 5% of these people staying in game after the first week. This means we get 1 (somewhat) lasting user per roughly every $6.5 spent. How many new users like that do we want? Let's say we go modest, aim to just double our current player base and bring us to early COVID / late 2017 Steam CCU numbers, which means we need to get at least 2.2K new lasting users. I'll let you do the math but it's not looking too great to me. And that's just to double what we have now, which would still be several times worse than what Toribash had at its peak when the game was just released on Steam.



I appreciate these words and I'm sure other staff do as well. The way I see it, little things go a long way in terms of fostering activity. Even stuff like just being nice to other players or creating and sharing Toribash related content all help to nurture a good atmosphere within the community, which in turn makes both new and old players stay active.


Gaming forums, generally, are fading away. It's a trend that's been going on for almost a decade now which has to be accepted, and forcing new users to go and check forums will do no good. Toribash forums will likely stay online for as long as the game itself is kept online due to the nature of how things are designed internally (pretty much all our systems are intertwined with vBulletin), but there isn't going to be a push to make players use forums more unless trends change.

Discord is a good enough hub for most casual community talk and has been a great replacement to IRC, and we do have a quick access button for our server in game that's visible most of the time you're browsing menus.



This might be kind of an unpopular opinion but I strongly believe that classic ES events are a bad way of entertainment for the vast majority of Toribash players.
There's a myriad of problems with them: you have to get online at a very specific time when a ES member decides to host, the event itself is pretty much you sitting in a queue doing nothing for 30 minutes to then play 1 game and likely lose, prizes don't really feel satisfying because they've stayed pretty much the same since the times when you could catch a tourney every few hours, etc.



Being a content creator with a large following doesn't instantly mean you want to promote every single game that you play, especially if it's something as unusual as Toribash. You may notice that ConCon's best performing videos now are all focused on other games - and that's just the reality of how social media works. When you make a video on a game that already has a huge following, you instantly get access to a way wider audience compared to when you make a video on something like Toribash.
It's amazing that ConCon and some others still publish Toribash related videos from time to time, but it's perfectly understandable that once you get a wider following and turn content creation into your job, you focus on what brings you most views.



Don't you think this approach is kinda the reason why these threads never actually lead to anything though? Like what's the end goal here if even you, the person who started the thread, has no actual ideas on what can be changed to make things better? Shooting questions in the air might help once or twice to get the discussion going, but these threads get posted every few months and they just feel pointless at this stage.



Latest staff hosted event (excluding regular multiplayer tourneys / hotseats / betting rooms) was Sledge Ride released in early February which had 396 participants who submitted 540 entries.
Blind Fight which is part of 5.74 update is would not be thing if it wasn't pitched as an event idea by Event Squad (and BOOST specifically).
Also... there's literally an art event going on right now?

Yes, there hasn't been any tournament type events in a while, sure. I don't know how current Event Squad members feel about these types of events, but I personally don't think that they're helping with retention in a meaningful way. It's great to see Kane and fl0w still hosting Endurance Onslaught events, but at the end of the day all you get is a ko bracket for a very limited number of pro players which then spans over a period of 4 to 6 weeks. Will these pro players leave the game if not for this tournament alone? Doubt it.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but to me there's fundamentally no real difference other than the prize pool between these huge tournaments and regular MP events hosted by Event Squad. The only thing that makes them feel special is that they happen fairly rarely, but that's also what justifies them having these prize pools that they wouldn't have otherwise.

mobile. my apologies for that.



lots to take in on that last message but as a whole it sounds you think toribash cant be any more successful than it is, or once was. and to that I say it took Edison a thousands tried before he invented the lightbulb

I believe this is an impactful conversation, with clearly differing opinions, and lots of ideas being thrown around.
it may not be the best or the first of its kind, but it could be the one with the golden ticket. and I would like to continue the discussion (be it without the hateful comments).

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note to self; when asking sir a question, be ready to read a short story xD thank you for you participation in the conversation

Player retention is a fairly weird subject, in the sense that there is no clear cut way to define what makes the numbers go up. For example, there's constant initiative through various channels, and while ES is the forefront of staff to bring in activity through events, there's many other ideas that Sir has developed throughout the years that have brought in new players and more reason for people to both stick around and come back.

From the most most recent one, Blind Fight, we've already seen so many new faces try it out and old players returning to give it a shot. We can only hope they stick around, personally I think this mode is the coolest thing Toribash has seen since decap_AI. There's been other initiatives, like Battlepass being a reason for people to grind out levels and opt in and support the game by buying it, or simply getting the rewards that come with free tiers. New items, new item effects, there's many things that can and will bring people back in, and I think Sir has done an incredible job in bringing these new ideas to the game.

From the ES side, we've been experimenting with old ideas and trying to find the sweet spot, Weekend Bash is an important event and we aim to only build on top of it, bring new ideas (like art, replaymaking) alongside more competitive in nature events.


I won't hold it against you, the competitive nature of Toribash is there, but hosting tournaments which only matter for the best players simply doesn't matter to new players. I agree that it's important to care for the veteran players, those that return to the game for these very events, but what matters is to bring in people on a day to day basis. In-game hosting is the primary way to do that, and I agree with Sir that it isn't the most effective way, since Client Events get hundreds of participants on a regular basis, but the foundation of ES in itself is being in-game.


Tournaments are generally tedious, this is a sentiment that pretty much every ES responsible for one has said. We still want to create them though, and we intend to bring at least one tournament a year to bring people together to celebrate the competitive world of Toribash, there is no change here and we will not change that. However, they do not help with user retention, even if some people come back, they will leave as soon as it's over, and come back for the next one. Nothing wrong with that either, but we're working towards creating more reason for people to stay, than to only come back periodically.




And as Sir said, there are other events happening, though I agree that there's always more to do. There's a reason why we're doing a recruitment drive, we're looking for people with fresh ideas and the energy to make them happen. Not all trials become full ES, not all full ES will bring about big scale events, and that's fine. People join ES to contribute to the community, and what matters is that they care enough to voluntarily spend their time on gathering people from the community to do something both they and others can enjoy.

haha what? how was that your takeaway?

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i think the reasons why it's so hard to build a path to get new players invested in the game is honestly really complicated and difficult to map out, but one of the things for sure is how esoteric the game is to engage in when you first touch it - you download it, expecting to be able to do cool shit like you saw in the trailer or video that made you interested in the game, and you open free play to this empty open space that feels floatier than it should (lets be honest, ukebash seldom gets posted in 2025), and if you've passed the minimal barrier for entry by navigating to the tutorial, after all that, what are you left with?

while Toribash's retention issues are complicated, this specific aspect of it is really simple - when you first start, it is difficult to earnestly frame what you engage with after the tutorial as a 'game'. the closest analogy off the top of my head is like handing a child a piece of blank paper and pen and asking them to try and have fun. it's of course possible, but asking the player immediately to make their own fun, figure out a way for them to gamify it themselves, especially with a task much more demanding than doodling - it's really no surprise people bounce off it so quickly. there are many, many issues with how the game is initially presented to new players, and many ways to rectify that, and i think the best way to get on track is more people actually looking at what that's like

one thing i like to do from time to time is going to livestreams/VODs and watching people play Toribash for the first time. almost always, the people who seem to be enjoying it the most had downloaded the game at the same time as a friend, hopped into aikido or a simple, fun mod, and simply played against each other. the zero-sum nature of this play actually engages those that are fresh to the game - because there must always be a winner and loser, and because you have complete agency over if you win or lose, the player gradually starts to adopt more and more control, and engage more as they are rewarded for it. the issue with the high skill floor isn't as relevant when they only need to be better than their equally matched opponent for the next match, creating a fun and engaging gameplay loop. compounded by the social aspect of playing with friends, i've seen many people get lost into Toribash for like, hours on end doing this, literally playing one mod, and yet it does not seem to get stale for them - as long as the players feels like there is progress to be made, something to 'try' in their next match/attempt

contrasting this, watching people enter the game entirely solo, as i said before, the experience seems much less like a game and more like they're trying to make sense of what to do in this esoteric piece of software they put on their PC. there's three outcomes after that initial experience really - they're either that odd minority that can engage with this, or they find their way to multiplayer to mods that are somewhat engaging on a turn to turn basis (boxshu, aikido) accompanied by the stubbornness to try and latch onto what little they can understand of how to play. that or, after a short period, they simply uninstall

with my own experience, i tried getting into toribash a few years before i actually did and gave up after like twenty minutes because it was like, hard to focus on anything really? i think it was because i didn't see the game as more of a puzzle game, where the emphasis is figuring out what you want to do on each turn - instead, i just wanted to do the move i had in my head. looking back it's sort of contradictory, like what did i expect? what would be stimulating about this if i could magically make my character do whatever i had in my head with no difficulty? i wouldn't really count that as playing, it's closer to drawing whatever you want, similar to the analogy from earlier. usually with a game you engage with the mechanics and pretense, and then from there you figure out what you can do and what you wanna do - with Toribash it's inverted, you come in wanting to do something and you don't think about how the mechanics (clicking joints, checking different options in ur ghost, moving a set amount of frames), are the building blocks to playing

to me, the play aspect of Toribash is inherently about solving movement, not doing it. it's why playing Toribash 'co-op', like I described prior, where you start with an equally bad friend and you only have to be slightly less bad than them to win, is more of a 'game' experience than finishing the tutorial and entering singleplayer. looking at blindfight, this mode is somewhat a direct reflection of that, in that there's an actual thing for the player to try and solve. when you put noobs in a vast blank slate, you're making the barrier it takes for them to realize what they're supposed to be doing to enjoy the game, to play, that much more difficult. when the player gets into that loop of being able to make more sense of what to do with their tori, and then actually applying that, it becomes incredibly fun in a way that's unique to Toribash alone. ultimately though, instead of being more like an actual game, providing players with something to latch onto, Toribash asks new players to find their own way to do this.

I will admit this isn't much of a constructive rant that pitches ideas, but I have always felt like the focus of the conversation has been in the wrong area. everybody talks about Toribash's poor retention, but I've seen few discussions focusing on what it's like to play the game for the first time, outside of broadly gesturing that there needs to be a 'proper' tutorial

I'm of the opinion that Toribash marketing really should cover all aspects of the game. Simply posting replays is a problematic way to set people's expectations, for reasons that can be pulled from elsewhere in this thread. People need to get creative with what they show, mixing in gameplay, what it's like to engage with the community, different playstyles, and generally interesting things that aren't just replays.


The quote I chose isn't all that relevant, but I want to say that I think integration with the community is a really key part of retention. Like obviously it is, but especially in a game where there are so many commands that are only spread through word of mouth. Just today I spoke to a third dan who thought you can only download mods through joining rooms, and I had to tell them the command for it. I have no idea how else you would find the command to do this simple, core thing other than by doing /help and running through every single command. The hilarious part is that /dl doesn't even work for everybody as far as I know. My point here is that onboarding people into the community is kind of the only way for them to learn some really important features, so stuff like the discord should reallllyyy be pushed because it's where so much of that important knowledge and feedback is contained.

I've bookmarked this page so I can link to this message whenever this subject comes up

Oh have you ever seen the minecraft youtuber Skip The Tutorial? He has a second channel where he posted a Toribash video last month. It actually resulted in a viewership spike on my own Toribash youtube channel, mostly from people simply searching "toribash". A few of my shorts went from <1000 views to 2k views because of this. Toribash 100% has a place in 2025 content, but content creators don't think to revisit this game usually. It's not a new trending thing so like... why would they? Honestly I think Toribash's best chance of a proper mainstream youtube video hit is a video essay on some interesting history about the game and its community. I see comments all the time that are like "woahh this game isn't a fever dream? I only had trace memories from it from middle school but could never find the name." I think that's the perfect audience for a video explaining where Toribash has been and how it's evolved. Someone clicking balls and struggling to move, or clicking balls and succeeding to move in a way that the viewer cannot comprehend, seems like a somewhat less engaging idea to me.



Truthfully, I think the power lies in the community itself. You all self-evidently have online presence, and many of you have social media presence. As Sir said, this is a very community-driven game. I think it would be a great first step for people to post about Toribash regularly in whatever way they want, just like how people post about whatever Roblox game they play or whatever escapades they go on in Minecraft. But right now I think the stigma is to not talk about Toribash outside of Toribash Discord circles because... it's too nerdy or something? Toribash discussion feels very much contained to Discord for me, and I think people should work to dissolve those barriers. Markiplier is not going to wake up one day and decide to save us by making a sequel video on Toribash. It would be best if Nabi had the resources for a proper ad campaign, but they barely have enough to make a sequel game that is playable. Marketing duty falls on this circle of dedicated players, I think. And I think these players have enough dedication to sustain interest in Toribash. The community just has to put the same effort that they put into whining about staff on the forums into making a video about... idk maybe whining about staff! Any content really! People just don't do it and that gap should really be filled. Results will come from our own action, our own expression of our genuine interest.

This


I've watched this happen a few times as well and the real recipe for retention of these streamers is when them and their friend are both equally into the game and get competitive with each other.


Game was way easier to get into when beginner servers were full and you naturally progressed to intermediate and semipro and by the time you hit black belt you had a decent enough grasp on the game to survive against the average player. Playing against similar skilled people made the game feel competitive instead of one sided destruction. I remember viewing custom belts and master belts as gods of the game who were unbeatable


Now the noobs join public boxshu as a white belt and get stomped after waiting 15 min to play and then never play again.


I think dyingderps point about the community is spot on. It is literally in our hands, WE can take actionable steps to promote the game. Would be super cool to see someone make a new top 5 insane fights series or a good player uploading multiplayer gameplay commentary breaking down what they are doing. Doesn't even have to be as high effort as that, just post a cool replay you have on tiktok! But obviously not everyone has the time for that stuff. I myself have a lot of video ideas that I just procrastinate on. But even if just 20 of us decided to upload 1 video this week on youtube that is 20 more videos that weren't there before.


Something wayy easier and low effort is just to simply go out of your way to be nice to noobs. Which I know a lot of us do.




Also staff are doing great no one should be dunking on the people that literally keep this game afloat.

Be kind. Help others when you can. Share your creativity. It doesn't have to be much deeper than that.

Be like Szaszuniya and become god of the entire world and then create Toribash in my own image, this will retain 5 million players every 5 minutes and then I wake up and realize I forgot what I was going to type originally...

what this game needs are people who are passionate about it.

people like ConCon, Mocucha, bust3r, manonfirefilms, LesDuncan and someone who doesn't get brought up much but was just as passionate as the rest is DrHax aka Bodhisattva

these people were all very passionate about this game and the fact that their names are being brought up in this thread over a decade later is very indicative of that

thats what this game needs it needs a community and a staff that are passionate about this game