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Overwhelming things in mmo at the start

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.

Comments

  • NchDuNchDu Member
    I haven`t seen mentioned things in a game yet, but after thinking about it, it sounds really appealing to me. It's great for getting lots of hints of further adventures, lots of future content which going to bring high-level players back to the starting area. From the beginning, you just get to know about materials that will be needed on higher levels.
    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)

  • SaeduSaedu Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Most games I've played have some sort of intro experience to help with this. That being said, I logged into GW2 for the first time in over 5 years on my max level toon and I was totally lost. I had no idea what to go do.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    See, I don't mind it if every thing is thrown at me all at once - I would prefer that to a "new player experience" that takes up half of the leveling experience the game should offer.

    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.
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack
    Bdo did a number on me too.
  • Noaani wrote: »
    See, I don't mind it if every thing is thrown at me all at once - I would prefer that to a "new player experience" that takes up half of the leveling experience the game should offer.

    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.
  • My guess is Ashes would probably lock certain NPCs / high level vendors behind certain node levels.
  • Yes! This is why i couldn't stick long to Warframe and BDO. It was extremely confusing for many new players.
    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.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    My guess is Ashes would probably lock certain NPCs / high level vendors behind certain node levels.

    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.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Riessene wrote: »
    Noaani wrote: »
    See, I don't mind it if every thing is thrown at me all at once - I would prefer that to a "new player experience" that takes up half of the leveling experience the game should offer.

    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.

    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.
  • Noaani wrote: »
    Riessene wrote: »
    Noaani wrote: »
    See, I don't mind it if every thing is thrown at me all at once - I would prefer that to a "new player experience" that takes up half of the leveling experience the game should offer.

    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.

    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.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited March 2021
    Jxshuwu wrote: »

    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.
    If it's not fun, stop looking around at things. Games aren't throwing these things at players, players are going around finding them.

    Either be inquisitive and enjoy it, or don't be and enjoy the game.
  • DreohDreoh Member
    edited March 2021
    As much as I love Wildstar, that's one of the flaws that eventually killed it. I guess in their attempts to save the sinking ship they started doing all kinds of promotional things in-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.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Dreoh wrote: »
    my screen was almost entirely covered in popups showing me new menus and cash shops and tons of notifications about them all at once.

    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.
  • Merchants must be by zones.

    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)
  • MahesMahes Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I also just went back to Guildwars 2 a few months ago after not having played for 8 years. The amount of content in that game now is daunting. They have around 100 different currencies that apply to various regions that you need 250 each for certain quests. There is no shortage of things to do but it feels repetitive after a while. A brand new player to Guildwars 2 would be very overwhelmed. I finally finished the "SkyScale" quest. That was a long involved quest(20 hours of play with extra for lock out timers) but it is nice riding a dragon. I think having a guild also helps new players to adapt to a content excessive game environment.
  • Mahes wrote: »
    I think having a guild also helps new players to adapt to a content excessive game environment.

    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.
  • I love the idea of a game not needing a tutorial because it teaches you as you play through it. Avoiding system-overload (item rerolling, pvp flagging, cash shop, exp system, skill system, crafting, refining, ext..) all thrown at the player the second they step into the world is overwhelming
    Trample the dead and hurdle the fallen. Run, and you will only die tired.
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