Greetings, glorious testers!
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Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest news on Alpha Two.
Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
1) some PvP element. As PvP can be avoided in the body of the game, or sought out, this should be avoidable as well (risk vs reward). The reward could be skipping the rest of the tutorial! Or maybe some cash, whatever.
2) I'm sick of the isolated island school of newbieland. Let new players see old players going about their business as they complete their tutorial.
Then a nice introduction to the lore/culture/context with impactful cinematic and music (do not need to be EPIC thought).
That said, i like to begin with a Character who is NOT destined to save de world but more like a standard basic mob who just need to survive/progress in a local way (family or Village context).
Finally, for the “hand-holding” part, i definitely like when its optional, but if i need to know something later then i can quickly find the things that i search. I hate it when its too long with forced click all over the UI.
Show, don't tell. That old saying holds true for a new user experience. The more you can work tutorial elements and developing player skills into a story and activity, the better. Don't just put walls of text on the screen with an arrow pointing at a UI element that players have to close over and over.
Second, RELATIONSHIPS. start developing a memorable NPC character or two, and the relationship they have with the player, as early as possible. If at all possible, get players interacting with other players and cooperating / helping / synergizing as soon as possible. Relationships make the player care, and it gives even the most newb story line some weight and pull and stickiness.
Less hand-holding, more challenging. A little bit of failure early on isn't a terrible thing. Have to show off the death mechanic sometime, right? Make the player stop and do a little think, make them come up with a quick plan. Anything that stops the tendency to blaze through and ignore everything in the early game because it's SUPPOSED to be super easy and generic. Why have 1-hit mobs, or complete safe areas? that doesn't teach anything.
Anything that makes it feel less like "Early_game_experience_091" and makes it feel a bit more like a world. So cliche, I know...but so often a failure point in these games.
Maybe even reserve some emotes as unlockables? Not sure what community sentiment on this is...
I like how OSRS deals with new players in that regard: lots of NPCs (and amazing quests! which I hope will be present in AoC) to learn from if you choose to do it; a great wiki to dive deep when you want.
I really enjoy good lore, exploring, and going places I shouldn't be at my lowly level. Having the option to start out as the "village slacker" to kinesthetically learn my way and not run the newbie learner process unless I really get stuck. Having some of the low level quests difficult enough where you need another person or two while exploring a little bit to find objectives instead of pinpoint map precision.
At this point you can already smell a bard and everyone will know about the massive level 6 yeti we defeated in a cave.
Perhaps you can "hire" a guide to learn about the way the world works instead of having a tutorial. I think it would be neat to have an NPC come up to you and mention they're willing to help you get oriented if you do something for them. That way, if you don't hire them, you can just get to adventuring.
As for main quests and side quests, I think they should end by suggesting to meet a person in the next logical area with an idea how to find them. I don't hate "!" and "?" but I like the idea of not having them for having a more immersive experience. Maybe you can ask around for the people you are looking for if you get lost? I think that would be pretty cool.
Oh my goodness, the idea of paying the guide to give you a tutorial sounds amazing!! HAHAHA
I really want to know how this would affect the experience of a new player - maybe they'd gain a real attachment to their money?
-> you're paying for this tutorial, so you'd probably want to pay attention
If you'd like to read the key points that we gathered for this thread, you can do so here on the original posting
I can accept a single intro cinematic if I can skip it, but don't you DARE take my control of my character away from me while in game. If you do put this in the game, you have better believe I will be standing ready and waiting to attack any player as soon as they enter in to that cinematic - basically forcing you to add PvP immunity with them, which would be hilarious.
To make it even worse, the cinematics won't even be any good, if you do add them. I mean, this game isn't even going to have voice acting, that leaves me with absolutely no doubt at all as to Intrepids lack of ability to pull off good cinematics - which inherently require good voice acting.
Now the topic that they were insterested was frustrating behaviour which is something that is more prevalent to arenas or competive play weather that is competative PvP or PvE or in the case of Ashes of Creation PvP in which there is a loth at stake like node vs node.
But well I have to talk about LoL a little more to get my point accross.
League of Legends is known for its toxic environment. What happens is in this game there is somthing called greifing a lane which meand you should not kill minions in a lant that is not your cuase you are taking that lanes gold. And hanging out in their lane makes them get less experence form minions so they level a lot slower. So it is something you should not do. Every one that plays LoL for a while know this. And there are real simple strategies like grouping at and helping with objectives that every player should implement. Super simple infact. Infact they even have a reporting system that can be utilized to report people that grief your lane.
Now Lol has tutorial, intro bots, begginner bots intermeidate bots, Talking about 5 players vs 5 bots. And if you go to thier website they put together a tutorial that explains how to explains how to play the 5v5 summoners rift ( main activity in LoL). However and this is the point I have been trying to make drumroll pl..........................................
With all the things that they have this guys do not tell their players to not grief lanes or grief jungles for that matter So....guess new players learn to play LoL from Angry Players. Which sets the tone for the entire game lots of people mute eveyone every game. And all LoL had to do is explain to players the rules of the game so they are not unwritten rules. This guys have quite a number of things to help people prepare for pvp
but cannot tell thier playes not to grief lanes like in their mentorign tools. So really it is there own fault that that game is so toxic.
Now how does this apply to Ashes a Creation. Well what type of frustrating behavior is there in Ashes of creation that can be averted. Well number one cause of discontent in PvE and PvP is lack of skill. For PvE causing wipes and for PvP not having the ability to do simple things like group and help with objectives causing a loss. We already have no Dps meter but suggest you investigate other areas.
So how does Ashes of Creation want people to learn lets say Node vs Node from angry players During a Node vs Node. or some other means. The main thing a player is concerned about in pvp is survival and killing the enemy as best they can really not Ideal time to learn how to do Node vs Node in a Node vs Node event. I already posted a lot about skill developement so not going to repost.
But basically Ashes of Creation should Identify frustrating behaviour and try to find solutions to it. Like lest say a mage walking around in full plate armour during a Node vs Node event.
I already stated this in another post but something that serves as a basic intruction manual or strategy guide to the game in general like Node vs Node would be very beneficial the game.
So a key element that new players should know is simple and useful tutorials or strategy guides that tell players the basics so hey do not frustrate other players.