2025 Player Survey Results
-
Please note: DMs have done some high level analysis of the survey to compare player ideas to our future plans. We were pleased to note our ideas already align well with players. We are releasing the survey results to foster communication and idea generation with the players - but will not discuss the major plans insofar as they'd lead to spoilers. We will share as much as we can though for the health of the community.
In the future, there are two simple rules to remember:
NO SPITTING.
DO NOT CROSS MISTER MOLOCH.
-
First the survey had a strong response, about 37 players.
What is very interesting is how many inactive or inactive but looking to return players filled this out. We think this says good things, folks still love CoA - we can lure them in for fun and good times. Feel free to reach out as players to friends, personal referral are still the best marketing strategy in the world. Mention CoA on your social media, to your friends, play up how cool it is.
Remember, the DM team is still willing to buy copies of NWNEE for people who want to come to CoA but can't shell out for the game.
In the future, there are two simple rules to remember:
NO SPITTING.
DO NOT CROSS MISTER MOLOCH.
-
We asked a few questions about setting; not because we intend to change our setting (though that was possible if player interest was high) but to get a feel for the kinds of themes and moods that interest our players. So here are results; and how we read them as community leaders.
These were the Faerun regions that most interested players; we note Calminshan and Cormyr have interest, with Calimshan the only rising bar.
We asked about regional settings outside Faerun, again, not changing but it was helpful to figure out player's interests in mood/tone for our setting.
We only really saw interest in Lost Empires (Netheril, Unther, Mulhorand) and not much strong interest anywhere else. We were unsurprised. Other portions of the survey showed an interest in a higher fantasy setting and a setting in the past; tells us their's strong interest in Netheril as a setting - but not so strong we'd change. What that may mean, is leaning more into some of the rich lore of the Lost Empires via future plots (we know folks enjoyed aspects of Anauria, and you are already seeing us play with Unther; if reception stays well, we can explore these compelling regions in fun ways).
In the same vein, we asked about fantasy levels and got these results.
Most the player base clearly appreciates where we are with a 'standard fantasy setting'. We did notice an interest in High Fantasy over Epic Fantasy, again, telling us folks like to visit the ruins of Netheril or encounter some of that high fantasy but don't want to see us go to some of the highest levels of fantasy that the Forgotten Realms is known for (Elminster battling gods level stuff every other month). Again, not surprising!
We were a little concerned about the Storm plot being a little too noir/grim - but players appear to like this so we're comfortable leaning into it, but will still stay near our standard fantasy level. CoA should be a big tent, there's some room for grim but also should be hope.
On the same vein, we asked about campaign settings:
No strong opinion is screaming change the campaign setting, and we had no plans to. But this question was really to garner moods/themes people want. We find a strong interest in planar travel and gothic horror - not so much we'd focus the whole setting on it, but I think we'll find ways to explore some of that in interesting ways in our current campaign setting.
In the future, there are two simple rules to remember:
NO SPITTING.
DO NOT CROSS MISTER MOLOCH.
-
Continuing with the idea that we're asking questions to gauge player interest in mood, tone, stories we asked,
I'm not surprised time travel didn't have strong support, it wasn't on the table anyway (but it had support, and I am checking IP of survey respondents and expect those interested in High Fantasy and Netheril were also interested in Time Travel).
No strong interest in moving the setting back or forward in time, but a majority were fine if we did. I do not expect that to happen.
What is interesting, and I'm glad to see it, strong interest in planar travel - and I think that this will be a great way for us to keep our standard fantasy setting, but also occasionally open it up to a high fantasy story; planar travel means planar portals and planar portals can open to tell a story and close to wrap it up.
Surprising no one, people didn't particularly want gun-powder in the setting. and my plans to introduce a quest along the Expedition to Barrier Peaks is off-the-table. People mostly didn't want weaker magic items (and those who did mostly said just in terms of wider variety at the lower levels or in prestige shops when you can't find the item you wanted on quests) but many wanted to see better magic items. Follow-ups revealed that most saw this not necessarily as increasing power level, but more variety and more interesting magic items.
I have written a script that will go in the module soon that will make it easier for DMs to add unique powers to magical items. Scripting is still needed, but it'll hopefully let us be a little more experimental.
In the future, there are two simple rules to remember:
NO SPITTING.
DO NOT CROSS MISTER MOLOCH.
-
When we asked what folks wanted us to adopt in the future, the answers were very clearly showing us that any new content makes people happier. But a few things stood out at the top.
New classes and new dungeons were the clear top choices. We're talking out on dungeons now with players, to see what exactly you want, and we have a DM working on building their first new dungeon and there's some plans to do an update to the Haunted Halls (hopefully by December that can be live because it'll be a big project and not like anything we've done before with dungeons).
New classes are tough; that's a lot of work and a lot of knowledge needed to build these. But I think we can start looking at the Vault for things that are built already, and which wouldn't be too hard to adopt and change for our purposes. This can't come immediately, but I will be moving it to the top of my radar.
But nothing on the list didn't seem to have support with the players. Needless to say, we're committed to continuing to give you new stuff to play with. Having more people join the Artisans Guild and actively contributing to our priorities will be great - I'll follow up with folks who expressed interest. If you don't hear from me though, ask! We need help; Arabel's future really does come down to exciting new content that keeps people logging in and advertising to your friends.
In the future, there are two simple rules to remember:
NO SPITTING.
DO NOT CROSS MISTER MOLOCH.
-
Happy note when you compare to the survey last year; the ball is rolling up with the DM team.
People feel the server is improving, that DMs respect players and are keeping things fair. Obviously, we need more DMs - and again - I'll follow up with those who said they were interested, and if you don't hear from me, just come ask and we'll talk about it.
We do notice here our weakest point is a sense DMs are not as focused on helping with players stories as players want. That repeats in another set of questions:
The DM team really does want to support player ideas and stories, our perspective is players are not taking as many plot hooks as we drop or coming up with their own as often as we'd expect. So we'll do work here to help clarify how to ensure both DMs and players are clearly communicating ways players can develop their own stories and get DM support for them.
In the future, there are two simple rules to remember:
NO SPITTING.
DO NOT CROSS MISTER MOLOCH.
-
Happily, CoA is fun!
I occasionally hear a perception people only log in for DM events; and that just isn't backed up by the survey. What we should clarify here honestly is that players log in for events period. Our Metabase data shows unique daily log-ins.
We had a nice boost up through the middle of summer, and a brief decline lately but are holding steady in the upper 20s, prior to may we were declining noticeably from the high toward the mid-teens. So people are logging in, and the current decline may be a 'end of summer' factor but we'll watch it.
I think our player base can help here hugely by looking for more ways to get other players to log in, this work can't all rest on the DM team. Host player events, contests, opportunities for roleplaying. I recall that when one player held "lectures of necromancy in the Falcon's Rest" at least five or six people would log in just for a debate! So go for your own ideas, and know the DM team is going to help you make them work. We should talk more about how to support player driven events even more, and reward people who do them.
When you look at daily non-unique log-ins. I see it looks like many people log in at least twice or more a day. Then see few folks online, and log off. If we had more folks trying to arrange events, even just giving an effort at making folks know a daily quest train leaves at 17:00 UTC every Thursday, folks would aim to log in to play.
Can you catch my drift? Players you can help us hugely by just helping to make people feel its a good idea to log in with you. :)
In the future, there are two simple rules to remember:
NO SPITTING.
DO NOT CROSS MISTER MOLOCH.
-
It does look like another area for us to improve is our reward system and sense of progress. We'll return to this with another questions, it was on our radar as an area for improvement. We also will seek out more specific feedback here.
The death penalty changes of earlier this year seem to have helped mitigate the overwhelming hatred for death penalties, but this survey says that work improving this aspect of the game isn't done. We have some ideas we put on the back-burner earlier in the summer to launch the Storm metaplot; I think some of those ideas are going to get more attention this fall.
I'm happy people overall seem to feel the setting is easy to learn about. But am concerned that wasn't a stronger response. So we'll look into how to improve here; I'm happy to see effort to reactivate the COA Wiki that is part of a solution.
In the future, there are two simple rules to remember:
NO SPITTING.
DO NOT CROSS MISTER MOLOCH.
-
Solo play is another area to work on, we're a multiplayer game - we want to be a multiplayer game - its why we're here. But there are times of the day where only one player is logged in, and we need to make this more fun. Expect some discussion on how this can be done, but some of it is going to be discussed later in these results. So bare with me!
Folks approve of the challenge in DM events, this is good, and clearly are enjoying the Storm metaplot right now.
I was curious about Underwater areas; when asking about new content - many players expressed a desire for new underwater areas, and folks mostly agree its fun. What this tells me is we haven't hit the right 'feel' for these areas to make them seem fun for everyone, so before we'd add new underwater areas, we need to address making those ones we have even better.
Happily, we see a mirror response on Arabel has improved vs declined. Telling us we've made big changes in the last year, and that's heartening because its been a lot of work behind the scenes for the DM team last fall to make vast improvements, and another huge effort this summer when that team largely stepped aside and handed the reigns to our current (honestly pretty dang new team). We're deeply cognizant of our obligation to keep this improvement going.
In the future, there are two simple rules to remember:
NO SPITTING.
DO NOT CROSS MISTER MOLOCH.
-
Finally, we've been concerned (myself for over a decade) about end-game content and how to improve it.
We put out some ideas, and its clearly that only one isn't universally approved - raising the level cap to 11th level is obviously polarizing and won't happen at this point.
Megadungeons and epic monster spawns get huge interest though. We're very hopeful to have epic monster spawns ready to go very soon. Megadungeons, will take more work, but we are looking for ideas right now.
This link goes directly to the idea I'm working with right now, but any input is helpful and welcome.
https://forums.cityofarabel.com/topic/69247/mega-dungeons/12Another area is our prestige system.
When we look at this, and other survey questions; its clear we can leverage our prestige system even more. Better magical items can be available in prestige shops, more impact for raising prestige for your town or faction; if players have ideas or requests, the team will implement what we can feasibly do!
A crafting rework and adjustments is also being looked at, but it will be a huge undertaking and require a good amount of input from players. An entirely new system is not on the table for now (too big a project for our team size and skills). But adjustments to the system are going to come around as a result of discussion with players, some of our crafting is a little too powerful, some is too weak, and some is just right. Join the Discord channel we have to help weigh in there.
In the future, there are two simple rules to remember:
NO SPITTING.
DO NOT CROSS MISTER MOLOCH.
-
So there you have it, the 2025 player survey results. We wanted to share all the raw data with you, and some ideas of how we're looking at and reading it to foster feedback and discussion with players.
Our take-away is:
1). We can improve the end-game experience and solo-play experience by giving players some cool dungeons to explore, leverage our prestige system better, and give people more high-level gear to pursue in prestige shops (and maybe gold shops).
2). Players are happy with the current plots, DM team, and where we're moving our story. We also feel that our plans for future stories will align very well with what our players are telling us here. This is great news!
3). We have the chance to capture new players and bring back old players, and the DM team is doing work here by bringing new content and improved game-experience. We're asking players to help us by recruiting folks, joining the Adventurer's Guild to help support new content we prioritize, and think about ways to can get folks to log in to join you on stories, events, and fun (which DMs will find ways to support).
4). We want to work on clarifying how players can impact and change the setting, and work with DMs to make sure you're telling the stories you want - and happily - we're getting a lot better than we were in fall of 2024.
5). Some new features will be coming very soon as the result of this feedback; hearing positively from players about things they want is a bit inspiring to give it to you.
We'll be in Discord to talk about any questions, I can open up a forum discussion on the survey or parts of it if folks want, and maybe we'll launch a townhall in a week or two (my schedule needs to calm down a bit for me to commit to that right now though). So we keep alive the community discussions that help CoA stay alive.
