This thread is very outdated and was written before ranked warring, I have no experience in recruiting for ranked war slave factions and am leaving this thread up because it's nostalgic for me :)
Now if you are from a HoF faction this guide might seem dumb to you, well.. it's not meant for you, this guide is meant for the faction leaders and recruiters who are getting ghosted by level 3's as if they had just proposed over text.
For most factions which don't flaunt a bunch of level 100's and all the perks a newb could ever dream of, recruiting good new players with a bright future is the only way for a faction to grow.
For the past 2 years I've been recruiting for my faction and I think I've got it down to a science, lets begin.
What do newb's tiny little hearts desire?
- You, just now.
First thing's first, you need to know where you stand as a faction. If you have 5000 - 299,999 respect the strong likelyhood is you aren't going to have amazing success at player retention. Sorry that's just a fact (See the first bullet point above to understand why). But keep trying and eventually you may be a faction among the best, everyone starts somewhere, and persistence is key, and you will still find players loyal to your faction it will just take longer.
300,000 - 999,999 respect, your numbers are starting to look more impressive you are more likely to be capable of retaining players as long as the atmosphere inside your faction is appealing, determined, and social.
1,000,000+ respect, 7 digit respect is the epitome of faction existence. At least in the eyes of a newbie, it really doesn't matter if you have 1, 2 or 3+ million respect, as long as you have those 7 digits you are where you need to be to recruit, and retain newbs fairly reliably.
Although if you haven't reached 1 million respect yet, that doesn't mean you are doomed to fail. It just means you need to try harder to make people join, and put more emphasis on the social aspects of your faction so that they stay. If your chat is dead most of the day you aren't keeping anyone loyal.
Once you get to the next step, you will need to know what other factions are worth too, there are a bunch of factions eyeing the newbies as they are born into the fire and brimstone of Torn city, you need to get to them before it's too late, but not too early because then you won't know if they will be a good player or not! It's also a good idea to learn the respective faction logos so you can tell just by glancing over whether it's worth trying to poach them or not while scrolling through the lists of new players.
These settings gave me 225~ player profiles. Are all of them good? ha.. no in fact probably only around 10% of them are good and maybe only 4-5 of the good ones are recruitable (i.e from a bad faction).
After this step, you want to look for Gold or Blue stars, you know the ones. [image: i.gyazo.com][image: i.gyazo.com]
You also want to look out for the [image: i.gyazo.com] green leaf, this means they are under 14 days old. If they haven't reached at least level 9-10 before losing the leaf you can probably ignore them. (However there are occasionally good newbs who spend literally all of their energy in the gym and therefore do not level as fast, keep this in mind)
Have a look at this short list of players
[image: i.gyazo.com]
You can get a lot of information from this without even opening their profile,
Faction leaders, probably too egotistical to listen to advice about starting a faction within their first fortnight.
Regional factions (don't bother trying to recruit from regional factions usually people like to be with others who speak their language.)
newb's in "big" factions, maybe restarts, again, not worth trying to poach from a big faction.
Search through the results you find, and try to find some newbs who are subbed/donator, getting levels fast, are not in a better or equal faction to yours, open the profiles of all that fit into your requirements. Open lots of tabs doing it one at a time is much less efficient. Typically I will open a tab for every good looking player per page, check the results, then move on to the next page.
So what are the things we are looking for in a good newb's profile? Pretty simple DoctorN + TornStats integration is great for massively increasing the efficiency that you can gauge the worth of a player and I would seriously suggest that you use this feature. You can see the exact benefit that these scripts provide in the screenshot below.
Here's what I see as soon as I open a newb's profile, let's go with the top player from the above screenshot "Renegadenine"
Refills are a thing that most players either forget to use, or can't afford on top of Xanax so I don't put any particular emphasis on it, however if a player is using all of their available refills that is a very good sign.
Edit: Update to personal stat graphs!
You can now load multiple graphs at the same time, I recommend loading Xanax, ecstacy, and refills to give you an idea of their training habits, loading other things like Networth, or user activity will make the Xanax/ refill graphs look tiny to keep it to the above three, it's also a good idea to ensure you aren't comparing your stats to theirs, as this will also make them harder to read... I mean... assuming you have good personal stats.
It's up to you to decide where the cut off point between good and bad is
Okay we've done a lot of reading so far, why don't you take a break and have a glass of water
[image: images.assetsdelivery.com]
Good? Okay let's go
There are a few ways to approach a newb, you can sent them a mail, with endless rows of text describing every aspect of your faction, with lots of faction logos spread around none of which the newb is going to see because,
Seriously, don't waste your time sending mails, the only time you should ever send a mail is if the player is very promising, and has the chat settings set to private. Or if the mail is accompanied by the following :
An introductory, conversation starting chat message, I have found these three to be the most successful :
(P.s thank you to my faction members for 'letting' me use your chat boxes as guinea pigs)
1. A generic conversation starter
2. An aggressive, and confident attempt to try to show a player you mean business (probably don't use this one if their faction can kick your ass).
3. If you are 99% certain they are a restart, give them an ego boost they'll like you more for it.
(these are all copyrighted so get your own).
As silly as it sounds for #1 I find that the use of a ":)" helps to ease the thought of "oh crap why is a level 70 messaging me" you want your newb to be scared, but not too scared! The same is not true for #2 because you are trying to be cool, and cool people don't have time for smiley faces, #3 a restart is unlikely to be intimidated by you either way so the smiley is pointless.
I find that you won't get as many responses if they immediately know that you are there to recruit them. which is why popping into their chat box with, "Hey wanna join a faction we have X Gym gains X travel items we want X we provide X" You will be ghosted a lot of the time, unless the player intended to leave their faction anyway. You want to say something that will elicit a response, but don't lead them on for too long because that just feels fake.
With the initial message being #1, the most common response by far is going to be "Yes I'm new, why?" and this is where having checked their stats out comes in handy, a personalized message is infinitely better than a copy pasted blah blah blah recruitment message. Compliment them on their progress, what they are doing right, where they can improve, your conversation to them should be almost like a lesson, or guidance, make them feel like they are doing well, and that they have earned a spot in your faction by playing well (Which is exactly what they have done). But be sure to make it clear that what you can offer them will make them even stronger.
Helping them learn important game mechanics that their silly low level faction has neglected to teach them can prove to them that they are in the wrong place, even things as simple as Xanax routines, basic money making methods, good company types, leveling, merits etc.
I also found that it's important to not go off on a tangent listing off all of your faction benefits like some kind of prerecorded message, ask them if they would like to know what advantages they would get by leaving their current faction, and joining yours. Remember newbs love big numbers, but they also love the idea of an active social environment.
It's this point where the newb will either say that they want to join, or they don't, when recruiting a significantly good newb "no" means "I haven't realized how crap my current faction is yet", when they do come to this realization you want your faction to be the place they think of going.
Keep in mind that when recruiting you will very often find newbs who for some inexplicable reason have an undying loyalty to their garbage faction and in these cases you need to show them the light, over the course of a few days.
Assuming your newb has rejected your offer of greener pastures, due to their fierce loyalty to a terrible "faction", what should you do to ensure that once they realize they want to move on, they come to you?
Check up on them every so often, keep a list of good players who you had decent interactions with in your approach stage, continue to offer guidance, after 2 days come back at them, they have had a few days to think about their situation, ask them if they really believe that they are going to spend 5 years in their current faction, hit them with the wise old torn saying "Torn is a marathon, not a sprint" (it works every time).
Most players after having some time to think, and having their current faction exposed for what it is, will want to move on, and you being the one who exposed their current faction will be a contender for their first choice.
Thanks for reading my guide, if you found it helpful consider linking to it on your faction forum :)
Bump for a free upvote!
P.S Wanna join a real faction?
Now if you are from a HoF faction this guide might seem dumb to you, well.. it's not meant for you, this guide is meant for the faction leaders and recruiters who are getting ghosted by level 3's as if they had just proposed over text.
For most factions which don't flaunt a bunch of level 100's and all the perks a newb could ever dream of, recruiting good new players with a bright future is the only way for a faction to grow.
For the past 2 years I've been recruiting for my faction and I think I've got it down to a science, lets begin.
What do newb's tiny little hearts desire?
- Big numbers, to a fresh newb there is nothing better than a big, fat, number. Doesn't matter what kind of number it is, members? 99/100 wow so cool! Respect? 600,000 OH MY GOSH. Level of the recruiter 95 Soooo damn BIG! Wow a massive 1000 chain? holy smokes that's a real faction! All of these numbers can be grown, and should be if you want to have something to flaunt to a newb.
- Better perks, there's no point trying to recruit a newb to your faction if you are offering less perks than their current faction. See above for more info why.
- Socialism! ... wait not socialism. A Social faction! Many newbs you will come across will be in some tiny faction, where no one talks, there's at least 3 people in fed and the leader thinks a Xanax is a type of massage offered by Thai women in shady spa's. Offering experience, family, loyalty and a life long home is almost irresistible to a newb.
- You, just now.
Step 1 : Know what you're worth
First thing's first, you need to know where you stand as a faction. If you have 5000 - 299,999 respect the strong likelyhood is you aren't going to have amazing success at player retention. Sorry that's just a fact (See the first bullet point above to understand why). But keep trying and eventually you may be a faction among the best, everyone starts somewhere, and persistence is key, and you will still find players loyal to your faction it will just take longer.
300,000 - 999,999 respect, your numbers are starting to look more impressive you are more likely to be capable of retaining players as long as the atmosphere inside your faction is appealing, determined, and social.
1,000,000+ respect, 7 digit respect is the epitome of faction existence. At least in the eyes of a newbie, it really doesn't matter if you have 1, 2 or 3+ million respect, as long as you have those 7 digits you are where you need to be to recruit, and retain newbs fairly reliably.
Although if you haven't reached 1 million respect yet, that doesn't mean you are doomed to fail. It just means you need to try harder to make people join, and put more emphasis on the social aspects of your faction so that they stay. If your chat is dead most of the day you aren't keeping anyone loyal.
Once you get to the next step, you will need to know what other factions are worth too, there are a bunch of factions eyeing the newbies as they are born into the fire and brimstone of Torn city, you need to get to them before it's too late, but not too early because then you won't know if they will be a good player or not! It's also a good idea to learn the respective faction logos so you can tell just by glancing over whether it's worth trying to poach them or not while scrolling through the lists of new players.
Step 2 : Discovery
Firstly use the advanced search feature, and input settings
Level 5+, Days old <30, Last action 0-15 minutes.
(You can expand the search after you have went through all possible candidates this yields)
[image: i.gyazo.com]
(edit: The advanced search feature has been updated since this guide was released, I would recommend against using the "Not : in a faction" functionality as most potential recruits will be in a faction of some sort)
![[image: i.gyazo.com]](https://i.gyazo.com/ee218c6a4b252e3fda60670ba9b4d95c.png){kind=link}
These settings gave me 225~ player profiles. Are all of them good? ha.. no in fact probably only around 10% of them are good and maybe only 4-5 of the good ones are recruitable (i.e from a bad faction).
After this step, you want to look for Gold or Blue stars, you know the ones. [image: i.gyazo.com][image: i.gyazo.com]
![[image: i.gyazo.com]](https://i.gyazo.com/b639d1d780f7f247b8953ed3dde27e61.png){kind=link}
![[image: i.gyazo.com]](https://i.gyazo.com/81d3a84818990edfa52b1bc3635fd9f5.png){kind=link}
You also want to look out for the [image: i.gyazo.com] green leaf, this means they are under 14 days old. If they haven't reached at least level 9-10 before losing the leaf you can probably ignore them. (However there are occasionally good newbs who spend literally all of their energy in the gym and therefore do not level as fast, keep this in mind)
![[image: i.gyazo.com]](https://i.gyazo.com/393e8bd48dcda3d1f4c8c17df703e2df.png){kind=link}
Have a look at this short list of players
[image: i.gyazo.com]
![[image: i.gyazo.com]](https://i.gyazo.com/855c9739a1dac083cbf61ea990d95033.png){kind=link}
You can get a lot of information from this without even opening their profile,
Faction leaders, probably too egotistical to listen to advice about starting a faction within their first fortnight.
Regional factions (don't bother trying to recruit from regional factions usually people like to be with others who speak their language.)
newb's in "big" factions, maybe restarts, again, not worth trying to poach from a big faction.
Search through the results you find, and try to find some newbs who are subbed/donator, getting levels fast, are not in a better or equal faction to yours, open the profiles of all that fit into your requirements. Open lots of tabs doing it one at a time is much less efficient. Typically I will open a tab for every good looking player per page, check the results, then move on to the next page.
So what are the things we are looking for in a good newb's profile? Pretty simple DoctorN + TornStats integration is great for massively increasing the efficiency that you can gauge the worth of a player and I would seriously suggest that you use this feature. You can see the exact benefit that these scripts provide in the screenshot below.
Here's what I see as soon as I open a newb's profile, let's go with the top player from the above screenshot "Renegadenine"
[image: i.gyazo.com]
[Looks like this player got caught cheating since I took this screenshot and had their Networth removed, oops! Glad I didn't recruit him!]
Update: TornTools has this same functionality and is a better app in general. Although both DocTorn and TornTools have both no longer got the "Days in faction statistic" unfortunately.
![[image: i.gyazo.com]](https://i.gyazo.com/99e7134f9810044ce98132fe4c87e898.png){kind=link}
- So the first thing I notice about this player's profile is the lack of Profile picture. Having a profile picture shows a willingness to play a character, this is an RPG after all, if someone is playing a character they are more likely to be social, and more savvy with social games.
The same applies to roleplay-ish names, ie "JIMMY1992" is usually less savvy, and RPG friendly than "Artemis" (Funy side note, I made these names up off the top of my head and Jimmy1993 exists and is 1600+ days inactive, and Artemis also exists and is currently active which proves a point slightly) - Next, level 15 in 12 days (or less) this is extremely good. and you can see from their attacking stats that they are making a lot of attacks, they know what they are doing most likely a restart or a very well guided newb.
- Xanax taken 12 and Energy refills 3, in 12 days, this is surprisingly not as good as I thought it would be, it's still good! However with a good faction, and some experienced players around them this player is most likely willing to learn.
- Possibly controversially the most important stat of them all, Networth : 807 Million. Okay! so he's a donator (or a lucky casino goer), this can be very good, if you can guide a new player how to use their Pay to win money to the maximum effectiveness then you can make then into a stat monster very fast. This also makes them much less likely to quit after a week if they have dumped money into the game before they even lose their green leaf.
Refills are a thing that most players either forget to use, or can't afford on top of Xanax so I don't put any particular emphasis on it, however if a player is using all of their available refills that is a very good sign.
Edit: Update to personal stat graphs!
You can now load multiple graphs at the same time, I recommend loading Xanax, ecstacy, and refills to give you an idea of their training habits, loading other things like Networth, or user activity will make the Xanax/ refill graphs look tiny to keep it to the above three, it's also a good idea to ensure you aren't comparing your stats to theirs, as this will also make them harder to read... I mean... assuming you have good personal stats.
It's up to you to decide where the cut off point between good and bad is
Okay we've done a lot of reading so far, why don't you take a break and have a glass of water
[image: images.assetsdelivery.com]
![[image: images.assetsdelivery.com]](https://images.assetsdelivery.com/compings_v2/violetkaipa/violetkaipa1109/violetkaipa110900186.jpg){kind=link}
Good? Okay let's go
Step 3 : The Approach
There are a few ways to approach a newb, you can sent them a mail, with endless rows of text describing every aspect of your faction, with lots of faction logos spread around none of which the newb is going to see because,
Newbs don't read recruitment mails!!
Seriously, don't waste your time sending mails, the only time you should ever send a mail is if the player is very promising, and has the chat settings set to private. Or if the mail is accompanied by the following :
An introductory, conversation starting chat message, I have found these three to be the most successful :
(P.s thank you to my faction members for 'letting' me use your chat boxes as guinea pigs)
![[image: i.gyazo.com]](https://i.gyazo.com/f03b6eb38b4f93599b51e5b6cea67c8e.png){kind=link}
![[image: i.gyazo.com]](https://i.gyazo.com/ab370c574fb98d8192ca2b76e1d2d2c6.png){kind=link}
![[image: i.gyazo.com]](https://i.gyazo.com/a62d6dcf7699337e3df593716dedf9e5.png){kind=link}
1. A generic conversation starter
2. An aggressive, and confident attempt to try to show a player you mean business (probably don't use this one if their faction can kick your ass).
3. If you are 99% certain they are a restart, give them an ego boost they'll like you more for it.
(these are all copyrighted so get your own).
As silly as it sounds for #1 I find that the use of a ":)" helps to ease the thought of "oh crap why is a level 70 messaging me" you want your newb to be scared, but not too scared! The same is not true for #2 because you are trying to be cool, and cool people don't have time for smiley faces, #3 a restart is unlikely to be intimidated by you either way so the smiley is pointless.
I find that you won't get as many responses if they immediately know that you are there to recruit them. which is why popping into their chat box with, "Hey wanna join a faction we have X Gym gains X travel items we want X we provide X" You will be ghosted a lot of the time, unless the player intended to leave their faction anyway. You want to say something that will elicit a response, but don't lead them on for too long because that just feels fake.
With the initial message being #1, the most common response by far is going to be "Yes I'm new, why?" and this is where having checked their stats out comes in handy, a personalized message is infinitely better than a copy pasted blah blah blah recruitment message. Compliment them on their progress, what they are doing right, where they can improve, your conversation to them should be almost like a lesson, or guidance, make them feel like they are doing well, and that they have earned a spot in your faction by playing well (Which is exactly what they have done). But be sure to make it clear that what you can offer them will make them even stronger.
Helping them learn important game mechanics that their silly low level faction has neglected to teach them can prove to them that they are in the wrong place, even things as simple as Xanax routines, basic money making methods, good company types, leveling, merits etc.
I also found that it's important to not go off on a tangent listing off all of your faction benefits like some kind of prerecorded message, ask them if they would like to know what advantages they would get by leaving their current faction, and joining yours. Remember newbs love big numbers, but they also love the idea of an active social environment.
It's this point where the newb will either say that they want to join, or they don't, when recruiting a significantly good newb "no" means "I haven't realized how crap my current faction is yet", when they do come to this realization you want your faction to be the place they think of going.
Keep in mind that when recruiting you will very often find newbs who for some inexplicable reason have an undying loyalty to their garbage faction and in these cases you need to show them the light, over the course of a few days.
Step 4 : The follow up
Assuming your newb has rejected your offer of greener pastures, due to their fierce loyalty to a terrible "faction", what should you do to ensure that once they realize they want to move on, they come to you?
Check up on them every so often, keep a list of good players who you had decent interactions with in your approach stage, continue to offer guidance, after 2 days come back at them, they have had a few days to think about their situation, ask them if they really believe that they are going to spend 5 years in their current faction, hit them with the wise old torn saying "Torn is a marathon, not a sprint" (it works every time).
Most players after having some time to think, and having their current faction exposed for what it is, will want to move on, and you being the one who exposed their current faction will be a contender for their first choice.
Thanks for reading my guide, if you found it helpful consider linking to it on your faction forum :)
Bump for a free upvote!
P.S Wanna join a real faction?