Hey Guys, also new to Perp here can give some perspective hopefully. I like some of the things that were mentioned, especially the stuff about expanding the plants, could be quite cool

First of all a statement was originally made which kicked off this entire discussion.

"Player retention is really low."

Do we really know what % retention Perp has and what % is desired? Which if player retention is not the problem, then game exposure is, and the starting solo play is probably fine.

Few things that MAY turn off starting players using my own experience:

1. I know I had been putting off trying the game for a while, ended up biting the bullet as I was wicked bored with my other games. Started DLing the game all excited about it reading up on stuff, but the game was DLing at about 100kbps, compared to normal 800+kbps. It ended up taking too long and I just went to bed and never went back to installing/playing the game until 3 days after I initially installed.

I wouldn't say people are lazy... but any obstacle of installing/playing the trial I know will INSTANTLY turn off my friends from playing games. I don't know if this is normal for Perp's download, but I can see that turning people away before even logging in.

2. So I finally got around to installing and creating a character in Perp, already knew I wanted to do an Indus route, had been doing some research online for stuff. I saw the "character creator" and immediately started laughing. This looks like a joke, oh well so I kept going with the character creator and finished my character.

Now its obviously such a tiny/small/insignificant part of the game (the character face), but I also think this is a hurdle for new players. The graphics in the character creator do not do justice to the game as a whole. Not sure how much the devs really care to do about this, but just another thing I noticed starting out that could turn people away.

The amazing part here is once I got into the actual game and did the tutorials (which I found quite helpful) I thought very highly of the game, and bought a subscription after only a day or two of playing, I saw the potential there and I liked what I saw.

Now again for some of the stuff like the OP was saying. How much of that content is actually touched upon for the starting player in the first 15 days of the trial (think its 15 days). And how long do you think it takes someone to decide whether they want to sub or not? I mean it took me just a few days... so that really is the MOST important time in my mind.

So... the OP's points:

1. Mining/harvesting: Many ore spots too far away from terminals/outpost long grind hauling on such limited cargo space. Only option would be to get a second account.

I am doing mining now, and I had no problem doing tutorials and starter assignments in my starting bot, following by an Argano and a Termis I just got last night. I am still happy with the state of my mining. I did get some guidance from a player which helped me a lot, so really just a little guidance was necessary.

2. Assignments: Should be closer to terminals or give much better rewards and standing. More varied assignments should be done in the near future specially for starting players, game feels too grindy to start out with.

I had no problem with the starting assignments and the distance required to travel. Sometimes I would get frustrated by the amount of impassable terrain and having to loop all the way around for certain missions, but that's more an annoyance because I already committed one direction to find out "you can't get there from here". I would agree that it does feel grindy to start, at least for the fetching/killing assignments.

3. PVE Farming: Again, needs a hauler alt or join a corp but everyone wants to fight not haul.

Same as the mining, as a new player I NEVER had cargo issues because I am just learning the mechanics of the game. I didn't start the game then immediately set up shop farming PvE, that seems like an awfully boring way to learn a new game, and sounds more like a way to make money ingame after you have decided to play.

In closing (TL;DR)

1. Cargo space is fine for new players, hardly a major inconvenience until you really start getting into the game, at which point you're committed to playing the game... sooo doesn't really affect retention imo

2. Starting areas and their assignments often times have bots forced around impassable terrain, very frustrating starting out, ESPECIALLY if you did not do the tutorial and did not hit "L" to see which terrain is impassible. I see lots of frustrated players quitting solely on hitting what they see as "invisibile walls".

3. Little Grindy to start, starter assignments for fetch/kill are quite bleh.

4. Game download and character creation process might kill subs before they even log in.