Streamlining the early-game experience

PotatoHeadQR - Dreamweaver

well, lets face it, people powerlevel. 1-30 i like what, 5 heads?
and the 29 culti chain is long, tons of travel and boring as hell as well as practically useless for someone that does it for the nth time as he doesnt really learn anything.

just put a culti jump stone token that can be exchanged for a culti jump stone (untradeable but account-stashable) by 100+ chars (or just allow anyone to get it).

if we are concerned about the player quality then make a bunch of mandatory quests (limit leveling/culti or something like that) that actually teach the player something (luring, freezing rnners, stunning, noticing buffs/debuffs) and even promote teamwork

thumbs

Remove diversions:

Newcomers don't know how easy it is to get rep at higher levels (while rep is almost pointless at lower ones). The One Man Army Quests are obsolete.

Arcane Book: Pets is a rip off and should be something you can get as a quest reward; if not a semi-permanent tome. It's just bad business to keep that scam going in the Boutique.

A lot has already been streamlined. Uber gears, BH, Lucids, etc. I think I just had to go to town once to get 3 levels from Fantasy Fruit from an NPC for nothing. -Maybe remove the NPC and just give them the levels because most probably will be so distracted they'll pass over this.

tientiensuser

I feel that PWI has a lot to offer for new players except not everything is easily accessible. I remember hitting level 22 and thinking the downtime between mobs was horrorfying. So I feel maybe increasing exp rates, afk training, botting, anything that doesnt force the player to witnessing the same mobs and terrain over and over again until becoming strong enough to witnessing the next set of mobs and monsters.

If there was a trick to powerlevel straight to 105 using ingame mechanics, Id do it.

hellwingwatlz

Personally I found 1-30 easy to deal with. May be the only thing I would improve is to allow the lowers to access shards in a cheaper way because even though 63k for an average shard sound pretty fair is almost imposible to make in 1-30 lvls so you die a lot and some classes looks frustrating to play.

b:bye

ShamandaIie - Heavens Tear

TBH the only thing you need to change is the extremely long cultivation as mentioned. What I personally would like is more interaction with your environment.

PWI is one of the few games left where it barely makes use of it's environment. Only recently and with 1 nirvana boss before did stuff like go stand in xxx area to avoid being seen by xxx or to be protected by xxx.

This makes the question game-play SO MUCH more fun, also adding puzzles and such.
Mirror puzzles, dungeon/mazes I don't know what else but it's just something I've had in my mind of what would make me want to go back and actually play PW on a low leveled char.

Right now over 90% of the quests can be done without reading a single word in game or looking at a guide. Take quest, click the mob's name on your quest list or NPC name, kill it, go back. Repeat.
So yeah, long *** cultivation and the incredibly similar game-play over and over if you actually plan to never hyper and just level with quests and grind.

alymara

As long as you allow players to power level you will not ever get but a few players to actually even bother with these areas.

Providing incentive to actually level a character normally will still only be taken advantage of by those same players that are doing it now.

Even quest like "Token of the Seven" (Which I doubt many level 100+'s even know of) which actually gives a decent award (The Skirt/ Pants are actually better than the rank 3's which at level 60 is the highest rank gear you can obtain )

If your desire is to get people back into these areas while simple is make the current use of power leveling impossible. Till you remove what is taking these people outta the areas any solution you try will fail. Player could still buy hypers but would have to actually fight and earn their exp instead of the rampant leeching used to level now.

Restoring the high level in squad nerf that used to be in place might provide some deterrent, but some would just spend more to make up for the nerfed exp and result in still empty areas as you now have.

In short ask your self why these areas are barren and these level quest are not being done ?? Power leveling ??


This would also stop the inevitable level 100+ not having critical skills cause the do not have the cultivation required for the skill.

I also feel the post 45-50 quest need to be up dated and exp increased to to reflect the increase not only in numbers of mobs needed but the increase of difficulty of the mobs them selves. I mean why should a Level 20 killing 10 mobs get more exp that a level 60 killing 60 mobs ???

Lastly the nerf of DQ drops and price of them is also a big deterrent to players being on the overland maps as a whole no matter the level. Who wants to grind for hours and after repairs make less than 100K at levels above 45.

Annonrae - Sanctuary

In regards to streamlining/drops concerning the 29 Culti chain... didn't they already do that? I've just done this on a baby Mystic, and they drastically reduced the number of mobs you need.

I agree that travelling back and forth between Archosaur and Broken Bow Bluff is a pain if you don't have a mount/aerogear, but all the quest drops around Orchid Temple that *used* to take ages, like the Cyan Wand, all dropped within 1-2 mobs. Maybe I just got lucky there, but I do seem to remember something about them saying that they already made that part easier quite a few updates back.

On a side note: apparently we don't get that overpowered ( for those levels ) starter gear anymore, from the chests you have to wait for after you create your toon? At least my Mystic didn't.

My suggestion: make a 'Starter Faction for levels 1-30' that you're automatically added to or can voluntarily join - as in, here, click this shiny button and you're IN the faction - the moment you created your toon and set foot on the map. WITH the option to leave it at once, if you're an older player/don't want to be in a faction/are creating an alt. It'd give new players someone to talk to and group up with for quests, if that is what they wish. Maybe make it so that older players can join as "Mentors" of some sort, if they've a desire to help the lower levels.

I think a lot of new players are disappointed by the fact that you're basically playing alone now, as opposed to finding starter towns that actually had some life in it. Factions on Sanctuary at least - the BIG factions - all have a level requirement to join, and from watching World Chat I've noticed that there are only a small handful of factions that don't care if you're level 1 or 100.

Elenacostel - Heavens Tear

- Increase the size of the quest window, as well as the number of quests you can have in there.

- Provide free teleport stones that can only be used if you are below level 30. Not only will this speed the initial levels, it will help get players addicted to them.

- Change the cooldown of Town Portal to 30 minutes or 15 minutes.

MagicEmpress - Lost City

No you fixed it. You made all those quests shorter. And with those lucidsilver packs you can get 25K XP per night which levels you fast at low level.

Only one quest was a small pain, it was getting that drop from killing those wolves outside the FB 19 Lost instance. Really hard to do alone at low level since they are like instance mobs with the large HP. If you aren't a barb or other tank or a class with a pet you're screwed trying to do it alone. Make sure it's 100% drop rate so you only have to kill one. Having to kill those things three or five times was terrible as a wiz, ep, or sin without BP yet. My barb and seek was able to with healing pots though, and my veno easy as pie.

Esnemyl - Dreamweaver

- More potion drops. As an elf, flying was costing me lots for mana potsbecause I wanted to go everywhere without mobs hurting me (as a nab, I thought everything killed you, and didnt know some were neutral till attacked.. Lols). Mana, I feel, is especially needed the most for elves, and also casters who have to spam skills to killin those early levels. Then again, I spam attacks on my baby seeker x3
In conclusion, higher frequency in potion drops for 1-30ish, then make the drops at areas past 30 with the normal pot drop rate.

- Better guidance! I feel the tutorial levels (I call em at from 1-15) dont show the player what to do properly with their stats or class. It should be tailored to suit what the players class is. Ect. You choose a Veno, the tutorial uses popups or a sidescreen to show how to use/tame a pet for the first time.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

Esnemyl - Dreamweaver wrote: »

- Better guidance! I feel the tutorial levels (I call em at from 1-15) dont show the player what to do properly with their stats or class. It should be tailored to suit what the players class is. Ect. You choose a Veno, the tutorial uses popups or a sidescreen to show how to use/tame a pet for the first time.

Excellent idea and reminds me of something. A lot of people **** up the first character and have to restart all over again, and some new mmo users won't know to go to the forums. I sure didn't. I think when you first level the popup should have a link that can take you to your classes' subforum so that you can learn how to build it properly.

alymara

Annonrae - Sanctuary wrote: »

My suggestion: make a 'Starter Faction for levels 1-30' that you're automatically added to or can voluntarily join - as in, here, click this shiny button and you're IN the faction - the moment you created your toon and set foot on the map. WITH the option to leave it at once, if you're an older player/don't want to be in a faction/are creating an alt. It'd give new players someone to talk to and group up with for quests, if that is what they wish. Maybe make it so that older players can join as "Mentors" of some sort, if they've a desire to help the lower levels.

I think a lot of new players are disappointed by the fact that you're basically playing alone now, as opposed to finding starter towns that actually had some life in it. Factions on Sanctuary at least - the BIG factions - all have a level requirement to join, and from watching World Chat I've noticed that there are only a small handful of factions that don't care if you're level 1 or 100.

^^^^ The now useless GM button could be used for this purpose, Kina Like a low level free chat for players to ask questions safely without having to worry about the higher levels berating them.

Might also be a good Idea to allow certain high level players that prove they are truly helpful to have access to this channel. Sort of a Game Sage title that allows them to lurk the channel and help if no one else can provide the answer.

BerserkBeast - Sanctuary

The game its a joke at lvs.1-30 -- Levelling its fast and there are more than enough quests to level way above 30. Even the so called "minibosses"(Florafang/Farng/Bloodrage Cadaver/etc), can be soled with most of the classes with - No level 10 gear,some lv.20 pots,some braincels(Kite/use skills/that stuff).

Yeah culti 29 its kinda a bother,but there are like 1000 things that are far worse than a slight long quest chain.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

BerserkBeast - Sanctuary wrote: »

Yeah culti 29 its kinda a bother,but there are like 1000 things that are far worse than a slight long quest chain.

When I first started playing coming up on 3 years ago now that quest chain literally made me quit. It was just really annoying and I felt like it would never end. I asked someone about cultis and they said they still had to finish theirs, and they were high level. I didn't really have a firm grasp of how culti worked at that point. I mean should have noticed you get it at stages....but anyway, I quit the game for a few days. This was before genies mind you. Yes, it was stupid. But new players believe some dumb things. Making things clearer and shortening that now that there aren't quests would be immensely helpful.

Flutterpie - Lothranis

Asterelle - Sanctuary wrote: »

When I first made it to Plume I was overwhelmed with the sheer number of NPCs that were there.

Over time I have to learn a great deal of these NPCs are totally useless and serve no game function whatsoever even though they had a misleading title that made it sound as if they had a function.

-Firework Dealer
-Awards Agent (2 of them)
-Cultivation Trainer
-Beautician
-Black Market Vendor Tu
-Arena Manager
-Homeland Guard

These NPCs do nothing at all. They should just be removed or renamed with a generic name to make it apparent they have no real function.

A good chunk of the other NPCs only have a function for high level players:

-Messenger of Sages
-Martial Arts Master
-Tournament Agent
-Arena Teleporter
-Bookmerchant

These NPCs have limited uses even at high levels and don't need to be in the starter cities.

i agreeeeee b:victory

shashahah

i only read a few comments so far, but..

-travel time (especially the one for lv29 culti...kill pyro1, crawl back to arch, kill pyro2, crawl back, and so on)
-culti length in general

when i started this game i didnt even know what i had to do in culti, those who were lv 70+ just helped me for xp (which i didnt know back then) and i had to re-do it cos they didnt care about the quest i had at all

btw, culti has been SLIGHTLY changed already...as in, instead of 15 mobs its only 5 per killquest now (lv29 culti; not sure bout the exact numbers anymore, but 100% sure its LESS), droprates of quest-items have been increased etc
chrono can also be done in squad now (cept for 1 quest)

could u PLEASE notify us in the future if such important things like mentioned above get changed?

AshenSkies - Heavens Tear

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Ohhh! The wings! It really sucks for new comers that it is a quest now requiring dq items. It's bad enough getting around without them before level 30.

They always required 5 low level DQ items...

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

AshenSkies - Heavens Tear wrote: »

They always required 5 low level DQ items...

Ah i remember them being easier to get but I guess I was wrong. Could've sworn I only paid some coins. b:surrender

AshenSkies - Heavens Tear

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Ah i remember them being easier to get but I guess I was wrong. Could've sworn I only paid some coins. b:surrender

maybe I'm remembering wrong thenb:surrender but I swear I remember having to buy DQ items back in 2008 for my cleric on LC to get the wings

Yulk_owns - Lost City

Nowitsawn - Heavens Tear wrote: »

It needs a large amount of extra attack because the immense level difference between the newbies and mobs/bosses reduces damage just like [?] mobs do for everyone.

It's a blessing that only affects PvE for one single dungeon a day, and expires when you leave the dungeon (= you can't use it again until the next day, it's not like FB bosses respawn anymore).

It also needs to be solely for PvE so you can't drop out of the squad and **** your teammates in PK b:chuckle

Also, I knew this would happen:

Well, I know slaying / warding levels only for PVE only. It is just having That much stat levels or VIT is ridiculously OP and possibly much stronger than the actual BH squad


You only skimmed over my post and got attracted to the coloured text of the blessing, didn't you?

Pretty much. Even for the first time it is not hard, nor long unless you have no idea what you're doing, okay, maybe newbies may not know what they are doing since for the first time it seems so hard, but it takes like only a few days to learn how to play your toon. That does not mean you should go in an power level which means leveling too fast = not good enough gear. Why do you think so many people ask for 2x most of the time?

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

AshenSkies - Heavens Tear wrote: »

maybe I'm remembering wrong thenb:surrender but I swear I remember having to buy DQ items back in 2008 for my cleric on LC to get the wings

You're probably right, I probably just already had them in my bag so the cost didn't register. I used to think the coin I got from them made me rich because I could buy all the potions I wanted. When I was level like 10 or so I was even grinding limestone to be so pro. b:chuckle I was a total nab.

Salari - Raging Tide

The questing to 40 can be boring and cultivation as well but, from a new player standpoint I do not see anything wrong with it. I think adding random spawning npcs (taking the form of random mounts pets and flyers) just spawning in different areas and just randomly talk about something in the game, or what certain mobs can do. Maybe even when you level a npc will spawn when you level and just start talking about the new skills you can learn now. Say when you learn a new skill a helper npc will spawn and say like "congrats on the new skill lets try it out" and lead you to some random mobs to try out. I think limiting this up to around finishing your 29 cultivation should be enough. Then maybe spawn at different parts of you higher cultivations.

Interactive pets mounts and flyers.
In the form of them taking up random conversations with other mounts even mobs. Talking junk or just random humor.

If i think of more will post

b:bye

Dariboo - Lost City

shopitup wrote: »

Yes, the level 20-29 culti chain is arguably the longest and most frustrating in the game.

Ha...have you ever tried doing a speed run of unlocking all maps and doing the 100 culti? ..X____x

knightsdarksoul

Put a level 1 teleport to FF in the starter cities, that should streamline it enough.

But seriously like other's have mentioned the culti chain around the mine's need changing so the quest auto tick over so you are not running backwards and forwards to General Summers every 5minutes.

Supply stash flyers need a longer duration or better yet remove the timer and make them only usable by those below lvl 30 and the weapons shouldn't have a timer on them at all.

Increase the drops, both coin and low level item's from the mobs around the starter area's, forcing people to grind early on just to make ends meet doesn't lend itself to them sticking the game out.

Kalish - Lost City

The easiest thing I can think of would be to eliminate the travel for 29 culti entirely - once you complete one part the next part pops up automatically, like it does when you reach the x9 range for any other culti. It's not so bad killing around broken bow bluff when you dont have to return to Arch every 5 mobs.

tientiensuser

Leveling is really hard in this game. Its easy by 2005/6 standards since you can solo level the entire game. You dont need a party or community to help your progress. You could do it entirely on your own. And thats what separated it from games released back in 2005/6. But while the solo leveling process can be accomplished, its very time consuming. I dont know how long you guys have been playing PWI, but I have been playing FW for the last 5 months. And Im already 2 levels away from the level cap. And you guys are still only about 3 levels away. Im already working on getting level 1 and level 2 wings. You guys are probably still trying to grind for nirvana gear or R9.

At this rate, my multiple alts that I have been leveling on the side will make it to level cap sooner than someone playing PWI.

A lot of the concepts to reduce grind already exists throughout PW games. It just needs to boomerang back into PWI.

Sirrobert - Dreamweaver

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Ah i remember them being easier to get but I guess I was wrong. Could've sworn I only paid some coins. b:surrender

It always costed 5 DQs, but it was easier back than because EVERYONE had those DQs b:chuckle (cause everyone had to kill the mobs)

Kalish - Lost City

Sirrobert - Dreamweaver wrote: »

It always costed 5 DQs, but it was easier back than because EVERYONE had those DQs b:chuckle (cause everyone had to kill the mobs)

Back then, merchants also set up cat shops next to the elder selling a stack of those flyers (which you could buy as many of as you wanted after completing the quest). It's possible you just bought direct from them rather than complete the quest yourself.

Sirrobert - Dreamweaver

Kalish - Lost City wrote: »

Back then, merchants also set up cat shops next to the elder selling a stack of those flyers (which you could buy as many of as you wanted after completing the quest). It's possible you just bought direct from them rather than complete the quest yourself.

If I remember correctly, that was twice as expencive as buying it yourself though XD

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

Kalish - Lost City wrote: »

Back then, merchants also set up cat shops next to the elder selling a stack of those flyers (which you could buy as many of as you wanted after completing the quest). It's possible you just bought direct from them rather than complete the quest yourself.

Definitely didn't buy from the catshop. Someone told me that they were a scam before I could do something that stupid.