Streamlining the early-game experience

Asterelle - Sanctuary_1381265973

Mayfly - Dreamweaver wrote: »

The starting city bookmerchants sell the level 1 manufacturing books (if you've completed the appropriate quests), you're thinking of the one in South Arch which sells the level 4 books... again, if you've completed the appropriate quests.

I stand corrected! Info Fox power is too strong.

Omnicon - Dreamweaver

I think a good way to help streamline it besides shortening the 29 culti-line, would be to integrate some sort of Mentor system for higher levels to help newcomers.

It could be an 80+ bh side quest. Or something like that. Where you have to complete something for a lower level. Maybe participating in a lower level bh, Or running an FB. Or killing a certain boss x amount of times with a player of x and x range in squad.

It may encourage new people and older veterans to mingle and tutor on how the game works.

/ork - Harshlands56

Oh. how this game is beyond hope now

I have an idea, just shut it down now, instead of making any new people angry/sad that they didn't listen to me a little down the line when you do shut down... ... ...

Oh wait no, not gonna happen, you guys are gonna absolutely milk it for EVERY SINGLE PENNY that you can first, before it actually starts COSTING you guys to run the servers, THEN you will shut it down...

Oh well...

ponyduck

CroPsy - Heavens Tear wrote: »

One annoying thing at any level, but specially at low levels are mobs that runs away. It's fun to chase KunKun for 5 min, but it's not fun to chase 20-40 mobs just to finish some quest.
It's easier for ranged classes, but for melee it's really annoying.

And it would be nice to fix mobs in BH59, so they can't climb walls.

I've seen complaints about this before. And I disagree, and will go so far as to say,
I wish all instances had mobs that would do the same or something like it. It promotes
a more varied squad composition. When mobs run away or climb walls, well, then
you really need ur ranged classes. I always wished for mobs/bosses that would
unpredictably change tactics, so you would make up squads to cover any & all
eventualities.

Anyway, more OT: the only thing I remember being frustrated about when I
first started was the running back & forth as others have already said. The idea
of giving a mount or wings that were good to lvl 30 is a good one, IMO. Otherwise,
I think it's pretty much ok the way it is.

I would assume the basis for the original query is wanting to get new players
into the game? If so, then you need to re-populate the common questing areas.
For a new player to constantly be the only one grinding in an area is depressing.
The first thing to do is what has already been mentioned several times: put a
level 75+ requirement to get into Frost.

Having better drops from mobs would help. Let there always be a chance of
something *really* good dropping, maybe some cash-shop item like a
plat guardian charm, or a bag extension stone, or some fashion.

Unfortunately, I think the damage has already been done, once they started
selling rep & "cash-shop power" in the boutique. It's discouraging for
new players to see the decked-out high levels, and know the only feasible
way to achieve that is by cash shopping. It nerfs your interest in the game,
knowing you can never get to that exalted state w/o heavy outlays of cash.

SoulNala - Raging Tide

It would be great if people who help with FBs get better rewards. But not only in the low level FBs. Something to motiviate others to help with FBs.

Pwntmasta - Heavens Tear

Update this quest Friendship Crystal quest in order to make it a new daily working kinda like the divine emissary quests

lets say for example

Req 1 lvl 100 to party with 3 or more lvl 40+ each party member gets some exp the lvl 100+ get a purple quest wich gives w/e rewards(coins or bh kinda rewards idk) for killing Qingzi

then you can do that for like many different level bracket

What that would basicly do is giving the higher level a reward and a reason for helping the lower level crew both high and lower level people would benefit from doing such a new daily

What i am trying to point out is there is very little interraction between high and low levels in this game atm the only place they meet is in FC i think

Monoftalmus - Heavens Tear

Advertise, seek for new players not old ones making alt chars, also, do more events for low level's only, and we are talking about servers, make them diff day times and not only available for players that come back from work. Set events on every several hours, but advertise, you need to lure game population from other games (non PWE) or motivate new gamers to even play this.


You can share Free PWI dvds :P

Reshanta - Sanctuary

Also all for shortening the 20-29 cultivation. Or increasing the exp the quests give, because after about lvl25, it's a long grind to 29.

Kadran - Dreamweaver

Reshanta - Sanctuary wrote: »

Also all for shortening the 20-29 cultivation. Or increasing the exp the quests give, because after about lvl25, it's a long grind to 29.

Why would anyone grind under level 60? b:scorn Get some quests.

letitworkthistime

Eoria - Harshlands wrote: »

1. Obvious/already been mentioned to death, but reduce the traveling time on 29 culti. You can even bump the mob count back up to what it was. idc. Just reduce the amount of going back-and-forth.

Agree completely! The fighting wasn't really tiresome; the running back and forth was.

And put a merchant in Orchid Temple and Broken Bow Bluff. From 1-30 you haven't figured out if you like a character enough to use an inventory stone on them yet. Inventory fills up fast, and low level characters are poor and move slowly. Give us somewhere nearby to sell those drops.

Eraldus - Sanctuary

Niriam - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Deleting optional content is never a good idea.

I didn't mean it literally, I meant that, at the current state of the game, that instance is useless. I hardly see people making squads for it (come to think about it, I haven't saw squads for it on wc for ages!), that's why I said "might as well just delete it".

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

Eraldus - Sanctuary wrote: »

I didn't mean it literally, I meant that, at the current state of the game, that instance is useless. I hardly see people making squads for it (come to think about it, I haven't saw squads for it on wc for ages!), that's why I said "might as well just delete it".

A lot of classes with strong aoes solo it for exp. It's not useless at all. it's just not a popular wc instance. This is why it's bad to call for the deletion of optional content just because you personally don't see the use in it.


And i'm seconding/thirding whatever the low level guild thing. I would MUCH MUCH rather see that then a high level mentoring system. When I play on low level chars I get tired of asking high levels for help and then watch as they steamroll through everything. I got to do a level 6x bh51 again for the first time in ages yesterday and it was so much fun. Much more fun than logging in my my cleric to breeze through it or if I have a catshop running asking in wc for a long time only for a bored high level to breeze through it for me.

Think about some of your funnest times on this game. Was it when you were following a high level player around as they quickly cleared an instance for you? Or was it when you leveled up together with some friends and battled your way through?

Eraldus - Sanctuary

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver wrote: »

A lot of classes with strong aoes solo it for exp. It's not useless at all. it's just not a popular wc instance. This is why it's bad to call for the deletion of optional content just because you personally don't see the use in it.


And i'm seconding/thirding whatever the low level guild thing. I would MUCH MUCH rather see that then a high level mentoring system. When I play on low level chars I get tired of asking high levels for help and then watch as they steamroll through everything. I got to do a level 6x bh51 again for the first time in ages yesterday and it was so much fun. Much more fun than logging in my my cleric to breeze through it or if I have a catshop running asking in wc for a long time only for a bored high level to breeze through it for me.

Think about some of your funnest times on this game. Was it when you were following a high level player around as they quickly cleared an instance for you? Or was it when you leveled up together with some friends and battled your way through?

As I said, I didn't meant to say "delete it" literally, I was just trying to make a point, and I meant useless for squads, which it was the original point of that instance, ijs.

EDIT: Also, I was reffering to PV at lower lvls

Kinjeto - Raging Tide

*cough* Solved by flat leveling curve *cough* Oh wait... b:laugh

Sagek - Sanctuary

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver wrote: »

A lot of classes with strong aoes solo it for exp. It's not useless at all. it's just not a popular wc instance. This is why it's bad to call for the deletion of optional content just because you personally don't see the use in it.


And i'm seconding/thirding whatever the low level guild thing. I would MUCH MUCH rather see that then a high level mentoring system. When I play on low level chars I get tired of asking high levels for help and then watch as they steamroll through everything. I got to do a level 6x bh51 again for the first time in ages yesterday and it was so much fun. Much more fun than logging in my my cleric to breeze through it or if I have a catshop running asking in wc for a long time only for a bored high level to breeze through it for me.

Think about some of your funnest times on this game. Was it when you were following a high level player around as they quickly cleared an instance for you? Or was it when you leveled up together with some friends and battled your way through?

I have to agree with you about watching a high lvl barreling through an instance and the low lvl not doing anything but watching. The only reason I think something like a mentor system would be worth while is because it would possibly encourage more high lvls to interact with low lvl strangers. it would also possibly increase the traffic in those otherwise empty low lvl areas.

I do agree the funnest times I had was having a group all the same lvl trying to conquer a instance.

Paikea_ - Archosaur

Sagek - Sanctuary wrote: »

I have to agree with you about watching a high lvl barreling through an instance and the low lvl not doing anything but watching. The only reason I think something like a mentor system would be worth while is because it would possibly encourage more high lvls to interact with low lvl strangers. it would also possibly increase the traffic in those otherwise empty low lvl areas.

Maybe this idea of a mentor system could still be used but just tweaking it a bit. It could be a daily for high lvls like a 2nd bh that offers similar rewards to our current bh1's, because lets face it high lvl gear is much more expensive to obtain then a lowbie's gear. However, for the lowbies that will be mentored make it perhaps a weekly somewhat like missive. This way, lowbies are getting a good reward from being mentored weekly and the other days still having to make bh squads to get their bosses. Making it a daily for high lvls and a weekly for low lvls makes it so that said high lvl is not mentoring the same people each day while low lvls are having to learn their class in normal bh's. However, i'm sure someone is thinking, but high lvls can just go help like they do already just not getting rewarded for it. This would be easily fixed by not having the boss to count for the lowbie's bh quest(non-mentored) if a high lvl is in squad. The only way to get the quest done is by squading with people actually needing the bh. I think this would balance out the problem of encouraging more high lvls to interact with low lvls and having lowbies actually do the bh's on their own in order to learn their class and to have simply just more fun experience in game. imo, something like this would make me want to make alts just to have fun bh's again if people were actually doing the lower lvl bh's like they were meant to be done. I'm sure there's several other ways a mentor system could be used but this was just what came to mind when reading Sagek's idea.

greykraken

frankie, hope u read this far...

been playing for about a year and a half, cleric was my first character, didnt make my 2nd toon until about 6 months ago. i have 3 now (1 is just storage) so i never got real caught up in the making 50 alts thing.

what i found when i made 2nd character and my ideas:

1. make temp flyer last until lvl 30 then disappear, walking sucked.
2. dont delete 29 culti, just combine parts to shorten.
3. inrease exp/rep a little. shouldn't have to buy rep until later stages.
4. for new players, being poor was horrible. increase grind coin drops?
5. increase fc entrance requirements to lvl 60.
6. how many new players, mains and alts have tons of unfinished quests??? increase exp/spirit some to make worthwhile. also i love the perfect questmaster idea (take it further 300, 400, ect)
7. give high lvls more reason to go to home cities, i used to love looking at them and wishing someday to be like that.
8. encourage more interaction with new players for veterans.
9. make a quest to join a faction early, making friends is important.
10. make a squad finder/maker, this would help new and veteran players come together better.

ty

Jeremied - Sanctuary

You've already shortened the west arch grind quests to unbearably easy. b:cry What else do you wanna take from me!?

Honestly, the only thing that's really bugged me is the time it takes to travel back and forth between quest in the West Archosaur area. Instead of removing (Noooooo) anything, just bunch more of them together. Then, they can kill all their mobs in 1-2 trips instead of 5-6. Well, and the elf culti 19 quests bug the heck out of me for some reason, but leave those be. It's good cleric and kiting practice for those elves.

I agree with making the temp lvl15 flier last at least until 30. Not sure how that could be implemented, but I can't tell you how many times new players we pick up switch around to find which class is best for them, come back to one of their chars and their flier is gone. =( I've actually seen people delete their chars over that and just start over.

I also agree with increasing rep in the before 30 quests, so players are introduced to the rank armor system. Or at least increasing the rewards from 1 man army quests to make people more likely to do those for the rep.

I would also like a system message that pops up around level 25, that tells the player that they can get a permanent flyer at 30, who to talk to (elder of Archosaur), and what DQ drops they need to get it, so they can start collecting early. I've memorized all the drops I need for every race, but new players don't have that luxury. <_< And I'm sure you know that when you're looking for a certain drop, it never drops. XD

I LOVE the new Questmaster dude (except the horns). However, even my level 49 alt had 200 quests done, so maybe add more quests to him for higher levels? =D I just love the fact that you're rewarding people that do quests instead of just plvling themselves. ty PWI.

Nedira - Dreamweaver

greykraken wrote: »

7. give high lvls more reason to go to home cities, i used to love looking at them and wishing someday to be like that.

I was thinking the same thing! If they gave each main city what we go to Archo all the time for, such as the Bounty hunter or Attendance NPCs, only available to that race, it would be a start.

Obvious problems of that can be solved by adding in such things as the ability for the Bounty Hunter to find members of other races that need the same BHs. Maybe like a list of BH squad requests accessible through the BH NPCs.

alymara

Jeremied - Sanctuary wrote: »

You've already shortened the west arch grind quests to unbearably easy. b:cry What else do you wanna take from me!?

Honestly, the only thing that's really bugged me is the time it takes to travel back and forth between quest in the West Archosaur area. Instead of removing (Noooooo) anything, just bunch more of them together. Then, they can kill all their mobs in 1-2 trips instead of 5-6. Well, and the elf culti 19 quests bug the heck out of me for some reason, but leave those be. It's good cleric and kiting practice for those elves.

I agree with making the temp lvl15 flier last at least until 30. Not sure how that could be implemented, but I can't tell you how many times new players we pick up switch around to find which class is best for them, come back to one of their chars and their flier is gone. =( I've actually seen people delete their chars over that and just start over.

I also agree with increasing rep in the before 30 quests, so players are introduced to the rank armor system. Or at least increasing the rewards from 1 man army quests to make people more likely to do those for the rep.

I would also like a system message that pops up around level 25, that tells the player that they can get a permanent flyer at 30, who to talk to (elder of Archosaur), and what DQ drops they need to get it, so they can start collecting early. I've memorized all the drops I need for every race, but new players don't have that luxury. <_< And I'm sure you know that when you're looking for a certain drop, it never drops. XD

I LOVE the new Questmaster dude (except the horns). However, even my level 49 alt had 200 quests done, so maybe add more quests to him for higher levels? =D I just love the fact that you're rewarding people that do quests instead of just plvling themselves. ty PWI.

But, But that would require them to have people that could actually code the game. Also Shame on you Hornz are great, they crash the server and clean out all them pesky cat Shops in West Arch so the people doing the20-29 culti can get through the area without crashing.

Making a lobby so people could make and look for others needing similar BH's or FB's would sadly require coding as well. I think all we can hope for is moar Hornz and possibly them being made permanent.

tientiensuser

My personal experience is that the mentor system is more rewarding for higher levels than it is for lowbies. When I reached level 30 in Forsaken World, I saw that I became eligible for Lost Lighthouse. So I qued for the instance and was randomly grouped with 5 other level 30s who have also never ran Lost Lighthouse before. It was a memorable experience but not an experience I would want to participate in again. Its like being stuck in a snow storm inside a log cabin with 5 other people. You talk and share stories but you would never want to be stuck in that situation again. We never finished the instance because we wiped so many times, the server closed the instance on us.

Ive never ran a lowbie instance as a lowbie again. But I have ran lowbie instances as a mentor. And as a mentor, those instances were fun. Basically steamrolled all over those bosses and trashmobs that gave me 2 hours worth of pain. I finish them off in 15 minutes or less. It was a very enjoyable experience. And when its over, I type excellent job guys, goodnight, and then I leave party.

That social interaction is gone, but if that social interaction was worth it to me, I would have continued running pick up groups as a lowbie.

I think whats really nice about the mentor system from the developer's point of view is that those instances dont become pointless anymore. They become part of the player's daily or weekly routine no matter what level that mentor has become. So its no longer just content that was only relevant 2 yrs ago.

Born_Again_ - Sanctuary

1. Make the flying veno/mystic pets follow ground when attacking land mobs.

2. Give venos ranged fly pets, like the mystic have.

3. Fix the graphical errors on fashion tops, when making 'chubby' (female) chars.

4. Fix fly autopathing, to avoid trees and stationary objects.

5. Fix land autopath to follow roads/paths with less mobs nearby.

6. Make chars below lvl 20 (or 30) have an explorer mode, where it is invulnerable (and can't attack). This way you support players that likes to explore from lvl 1.

7. Make it easier to lvl from 90 to 105. This way players can focus on farming rep or other endgame gears. And contribute more to building faction bases and such. This is also supported by the idea that PWI will always be a bot free game.

7. Make more water content. Specifically a training area like cube for land pets and staunch worms for air pets.

8. A better tank water pet than the turtle would be nice (I recommend the: Whitelip Whale)

9. Also in water a ranged pet would be fun to play with.

b:thanks b:heart b:thanks

alymara

Born_Again_ - Sanctuary wrote: »

1. Make the flying veno/mystic pets follow ground when attacking land mobs.

2. Give venos ranged fly pets, like the mystic have.

3. Fix the graphical errors on fashion tops, when making 'chubby' (female) chars.

4. Fix fly autopathing, to avoid trees and stationary objects.

5. Fix land autopath to follow roads/paths with less mobs nearby.

6. Make chars below lvl 20 (or 30) have an explorer mode, where it is invulnerable (and can't attack). This way you support players that likes to explore from lvl 1.

7. Make it easier to lvl from 90 to 105. This way players can focus on farming rep or other endgame gears. And contribute more to building faction bases and such. This is also supported by the idea that PWI will always be a bot free game.

7. Make more water content. Specifically a training area like cube for land pets and staunch worms for air pets.

8. A better tank water pet than the turtle would be nice (I recommend the: Whitelip Whale)

9. Also in water a ranged pet would be fun to play with.

b:thanks b:heart b:thanks

You forgot to make it so Land Pets don't go poof when they step in a puddle or go through ankle deep water.

Nerlda - Dreamweaver

the quest "Beauty Chang's Wish" where you have to kill Kun kun and you get a makeover scroll as reward can we change it so you get a advanced makeover scroll as reward instead, b:pleased , just the scroll alone would make allot of ppl to do the quest b:pleased

BurnWhenIWiz - Heavens Tear

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.

Agreed, with a few modifications.

The Beautician is for makeover scrolls, has a function.
Homeland guard is for the faction that controls that territory to make apoth items, etc.
The Arena Teleporter is an access to the deathmatch arena, which is useless, but it's a cheap teleport to arch cutting through the cube.
Bookmerchant will sell you even the level 1 manufacturing skill books if you accidentally NPC it before learning it.

The others are very misleading, same with the aerocraft dealers.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

BurnWhenIWiz - Heavens Tear wrote: »

The Beautician is for makeover scrolls, has a function.

We don't have advance makeover scrolls if that NPC is indeed for them. Cosmetic Master handles the regular makeover scrolls though.

BurnWhenIWiz - Heavens Tear

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver wrote: »

We don't have advance makeover scrolls if that NPC is indeed for them. Cosmetic Master handles the regular makeover scrolls though.

Woops, got those two mixed up.

Well, take beautician off the list of useful npc's then.

Ember_ - Harshlands

why bother witthe low lvl quest line, since every one is soo bent up on plvl their character through FC. no to mention it get annoying ppl WCing every minute selling FC Room

Empu - Sanctuary

Didn't read everything before this point, but here are my thoughts :

For me the problem isn't really the quest themselves 1~30. The only downpoint I see is tideborn and earthguard 1~20 chains being faster then the original ones. I lvled a new toon not that long ago and found that in general, the main improovements chain-wise have been done already :
- The culti has been made significanly shorter. Less kills required and droprates all 100%.
- Free timed flyers.
- Good weapons from box and armor from the timer.
- Extra exp boosts from lucidgold.

Overal, lvling to 30 is rather easy and quick advancing. The only problem is that litterally nobody is around. On my wiz, I saw nobody except in Ether and Arch till lvl35 at least b:shocked That seems to be that way all over the map these days because nothing rivals hyper-fcc in efficiency. Just a pain to get in snowy 1st time, but after you don't have to leave till you're 100.

So, this may be a little limit off-topic, but I'd rather review the lvling 1~80/90+. After you put in an npc to reward questing, it seems you already noticed that the quest rewards are just not incentive enough as they are. So here is a little idea to concider :
Take out hypers out of the boutique and tokenshop. As counterpart, add 1 to 3 hypers as quest reward for all non-cycle quest depending on difficulty/lenght/lvl. I think these hypers should be unable to be traded or accountstashed like some of the free hypers we were given from time to time. But it might be a good idea to keep the normal as it will certainly get some players to make alts just for the easy extra hypers. Since quests get rather rare in higher lvls (lets say 80+ or 90+), it would be a good idea to add a 1 hyper to 1-man-army or something. Or add them to call-to-duty quests as incentive to help others out on FB.

Well, it's just a thought to get maps more populated, because that is the main problem imo. Being all alone on an empty map with nobody around is boring and surely makes any new player who doesn't know what fcc is quit before even reaching lvl10.

Kalish - Lost City

Boost gear drops from mobs 1-70. I tried to level my seeker properly from from 1-80 and spent over 99% of that time in the Corona gear, the L30 rep gear (which you don't actually get the rep for until about 40-45 unless you buy rep or grind army of one) and vendor bought gear.

Change the rep of the 1-30 quests so that it turns out if you do every quest you are supposed to, you have 300 rep at level 30 for your first set of gear.

It's not until 70+ that you can start getting "guaranteed" armour - and with the lack of people under 70 out questing and grinding there is absolutely nothing on the AH under that level.