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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Overwhelming things in mmo at the start
Riessene
Member
I consider myself a veteran of Trying Out every mmo I find and after playing some bdo today I wanted to discuss a thing that I consider a bad game design that I hope AoC avoids.
Which is to pour every single game mechanic, currency and end game at best activity on a player from level 1. It's extremely confusing to be able to find traders you will never need until level 80 that offer Pure Gold Incrustation Diamonds in exchange for reputation for faction you wont meet for 134 hours at least in the starting village where you are trying to sell your wolf pelts from the quest while daily login reward of 69 blue rubies of experience is strobing in the corner. It might be an unpopular opinion but I like to be babied and introduced to things gradually as I need them and not have everything in one place.
Which is to pour every single game mechanic, currency and end game at best activity on a player from level 1. It's extremely confusing to be able to find traders you will never need until level 80 that offer Pure Gold Incrustation Diamonds in exchange for reputation for faction you wont meet for 134 hours at least in the starting village where you are trying to sell your wolf pelts from the quest while daily login reward of 69 blue rubies of experience is strobing in the corner. It might be an unpopular opinion but I like to be babied and introduced to things gradually as I need them and not have everything in one place.
8
Comments
Moreover, i think about extraordinary mobs only beatable for raids or endgame players in the starting zone just for the thrill and feeling of a new weak character (what you are at this point of the game)
If a merchant has something on them that requires a specific faction, I want to know what it is they offer, and what faction I need to work on to get it. What I don't want is for merchants that I have talked to previously that offered me nothing to now all of a sudden have items up for sale. To me, if an NPC offers something, then they should show what they are offering.
From there, if the new player experience takes a player past that NPC but doesn't specifically give them a reason to talk to that NPC, if that player should chose to talk to that NPC to see what they offer and then get confused or upset at being given information that is not yet pertinent to them, that is 100% on the player, as they are the one that went off script from the new player experience.
The only way to not have NPC's show you everything they have, and also not have 'players confuse themselves, is for the entire leveling process to be linear - so where ever you are only has information and equipment that is relative to the level you would expect to be while you are in the area.
That really doesn't work with Ashes.
To each is own of course, but it only works if a player is already familiar with a similar mechanic. Or if tooltip sufficiently explains stuff. But in my experience its rarely this way. Sure I don't need to be taught how to WASD but isn't it more interesting/satisfying for your horizons of available things to do broaden AS you progress?
But again its just my opinion as a person who was relatively new to the whole genre a few years ago.
Sure it might be good for people who are already used to this system, but you want a new audience to take interest also.
It's better to take things once at a time, and let people figure out things themselves down the line than tell them everything there is right off the bat, because then the newbie won't know what to progress first/last.
Without a doubt - even high level content will be locked behind them.
However, if you start the game 6 months after launch, and the node right next to the portal you start at happens to be a metropolis, I'd expect that player to be able to see everything I am able to see.
If you are playing an MMO and come across a mechanic or a system you do not yet understand, the thing 99% of players will do is look it up on a wiki.
If you are in that 1%, all you need to do is ignore it until it's function becomes obvious.
There are literally only two ways developers can prevent players from seeing everything in the game if they are curious enough - artificial gates, or linear content. Neither of these are particularly great.
Often, looking it up on a wiki isn't fun to all players. Exploring and 'figuring out' is part of the fun and part of the process. But it becomes unfun if 1000 things are thrown at you at once.
Could argue thats a personal problem, but i believe the game is meant to entertain.
Either be inquisitive and enjoy it, or don't be and enjoy the game.
After a long hiatus I decided to get back into the game (this was like 6 months before it shut down) and as soon as I logged in on my max level character after not playing for over a year my screen was almost entirely covered in popups showing me new menus and cash shops and tons of notifications about them all at once. Literally like only 20% of my screen space was not UI bombarding me. It was definitely overwhelming and killed most of my motivation to play almost immediately.
Outside of that, Wildstar actually had a very good tutorial and intro to the game system. Though idk how the new game experience was towards the end because I didn't make a new character when I tried getting back into it.
Yeah, that is exactly the wrong method to go about telling people about new things.
I am still of the opinion that the best way to tell people is simply to not, let them figure it out on their own.
If I am level 20, I should go to such a town / city that deals with trading everything I need up to level 30. (for example)
Oh for Sure!! I think partially what made me stick with ffxiv for the longest time than any other mmo was that my friends played it and helped me.