Would it help new players if they were immediately placed into an army? That way from the beginning they would be able to figure out where they should be and what the realm is up to. You could just have the starting army set by the general or something.
Great idea. I know many realms already have "training armies" dedicated for new nobles to learn the ropes anyways, usually dealing with home defense/monster spawnings, etc.
I'd be in favor of removing the mentor class entirely, and replacing with the ability for anyone, after a certain account age, to become a mentor without losing a class choice. I tried the mentor class for sometime, but found it to be dreadfully boring. Not at all worth giving up another class. If any character could do it without penalty then one would likely see more active mentors.
I also support this. I think there is generally a lack of (good) mentors because no one wants to have to change their subclass to do it. Sure, we all want new player retention, but above all else we want to have fun ourselves, why give up your desirable subclass and a hit your own fun just to teach new nobles how to play every few weeks (or months) if you're lucky?
A tid bit I would like to add to the discussion: I recently recruited a friend to BattleMaster. He joined, sent a simple intro message, and then was auto-paused and then deleted. The next time I saw him I mentioned it, and he said "oh, yeah, I just forgot about the game and logging in."
Perhaps this is silly of me, but I was shocked because I had forgotten that not everybody loves this game and thinks every day when they sit down at the computer, "need to check BM." I think the first few turns/days are incredibly crucial for retention and there needs to be a good way to grab their interest. Even "lets buy a unit" or "move to this region" simply aren't enough. Those aren't the reasons any of us play, there are deeper reasons, not just simple pure mechanics or button pushes. I think this deserves some significant consideration.
