5V5 clan arena co-op

I think one reason Xonotic lacks popularity is that noobs don't feel comfortable in multiplayer. They got owned so easily by experienced players.

Unlike other FPS, Xonotic requires more practice: noobs have to learn to lead their shot because most weapons are not hitscan. noobs have to learn to improve accuracy because players move so fast but most weapons have low fire rate. Noobs have to learn to get used to weapon combo which is rarely seen in conventional FPS. The mastery of these key skills means a difference between win and defeat. So when noobs jump in a server, they are easily owned by more experienced players, and such frustrating experience will prevent them from entering the server again.

So I recommend changing the game type on some servers to 5V5 clan arena, with AI in one side and human players in another side, to creat a coop environment. That will attract more players.

Although Vanilla is hard to learn especially if you never played a game like this but I don't think its the reason there aren't as many players. Except for word of mouth the game isn't officially advertised/promoted anywhere. You need that to get in new players to replace the players that leave for what ever reason.

If you go back to when I started my Camping Rifle FT the was quite a bit more active players, hell my server had 20+ all quit often and ESK was always filled along with DTG and even both of the vehicle servers.

It is summer holidays now and same thing happened last summer when the community got smaller but it did rebound but then died off again. I don't have an answer but if no one really knows about the game the new players vs leaving players will always be skewed.

There's a NIX mutator that I've been meaning to set up a server with which causes the weapons to switch after a certain amount of time. This might be better to introduce people to Vanilla as they will have more time to practice each weapon instead of panicking tying to find the right weapons switch button.

At DCC we're currently experiencing a comeback of vanilla CTF, with a couple of other active community members we try to keep up the DCC CTF TIME which usually starts in the evening CET time. Just by populating the server with a handful of experienced players we managed to attract a lot of casual players again to DCC, some of them I hadn't seen in a long time but still remember their nicks. I think if you only manage to generate some continuity in server population, you really can build up a small community that, if grown enough, manages to sustain itself.

Vanilla gameplay may be hard to learn, but if you know WHAT to learn the learning curve is very steep. That's why I raise my hat to all those great community members that take their time to show newbies the rope! GOOD JOB you people!