The ever-beloved FTUE

Ludullu

For some reason Intrepid are trying to create a good FTUE at this point of development, instead of doing it at the end where they have the most experience and the game is at its best, so I decided to give feedback on what they're trying to do.

Imo the ideal starter path is smth like this:

1. npc at the portal says "ah, I see you are *insert player archetype*. I'd recommend getting this type of armor and behind me there's a rack of weapons you can choose from"
2. that dialogue window then has a 3-way choice of armor types with a "recommended for your archetype" addition on one of them
3. once you choose one, the npc says the same thing they do rn "you can go to the either side and then talk to this person there"
4. once you get to the first town, the continuations of this quest now reward you with recipes for a full set of armor that you chose
5. once you get the mount, you're pointed towards commissions, which are not random and are instead tied to the locations of your current main quest (either direct one or neighboring spots)
6. instead of random bs loot boxes, commissions reward you with special currency (and of course some glint)
7. that currency can be used to buy crafting mats from a local vendor
8. those mats should also be dropping from the commission and main quest mobs
9. at around lvl5-6 the main quest should direct you to the artisanry process that's related to the armor type you chose
10. npcs at those stations are related to the main quest and can direct you to spawn points of mats required for your recipes
11. they also suggest picking up some artisanry commissions from a board that's right next to them, whose commissions are also related to the mats you're about to get, rather than rng ones
12. there should be 4 spots in the relative vicinity of the starting zone for any required mat
13. the artisanry npcs can point you only towards one of the 3 (at random, to spread people out a bit), so that people who already have more knowledge can choose the 4th spot
14. all the quest and commission rewards should cover your crafting expenses (ideally including a possibiltiy of 1-2 deaths with full inventory tbh)
15. by this point you should be around lvl8-9
16. last part of the quest chain gives you a recipe for each of the weapons you're most profficient at (it checks your weapon skill tree status) and tells you to where to get the mats/gatherables for it
17. once you're done with that, the quest tells you about the local nodes, their status/lvl/etc and sets you free

By the end of this path the player would have a full set of gear (tier 2 would probably be fine here), they would've gone through the entire crafting process, so they'd be able to make a more conscious decision on what profession they wanna stick with (the limitations of that choice should also be presented during the quest). And the player will be right around lvl10, so that they can start their citizen journey.

The process would still have some grind in it, because commissions are inherently that. It would have artisanry (which would show that you get xp from it). And it would show the combination of the two resulting in direct progress of your character.

I know this is a fair bit handholdy, but considering the depth of some of the systems in Ashes, I think some handholding is fine right at the start.

P.S. WHOEVER AT INTREPID HAD THE GENIUS IDEA TO PUT A GOD DAMN RESPAWN TIMER OF ONE MINUTE ON THE STARTER WEAPONS IN THE PORTAL ROOM - you're beyond evil, sadistic and cruel.

lamina5432

Agreed we need a relatively hand holdy FTUE the current one is even out of date by the current system standards and was not ready for a new phase. Also we need to add the new weapon options to the starting area. I have a few add-ons for some of the progress points.

3-4. we need both sides of the Riverlands to have all the crafting bench's for level 0 going to the other side is not a good experience when you are learning the game.
5. the current Riverlands starting zones acts more as a funnel even though there are more area for people to go around in where everyone gathers in the middle of the castle

17. Then more an extra step for later when nodes get MSQ's you need something in their lore wise that maybe alludes to a hint.
This last one is not something for a while

Not really a thing for the steps themselves but you may need to introduce a way to spark player interaction with materials you have that someone needs for their crafting instead of you doing all the gathering yourself.