Ikisith, Groups, and You (the new guys)

Swiftur

Swiftur

Dalayan Elder
AngryCow said:
Getting in to Ikisith is not supposed to be easy. If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen, sort of thing.
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In talking about QoL changes in this thread about the Murk, Marthog sparked a thought in my mind which I believe to be an even more important discussion regarding new players. Especially with the account drive wrapping up and ads coming out soonish.

Yes. Ikisith is supposed to be tough, or at least... it was when it came out. At the time it came out there were so many people playing actively on this server that it didn't really affect newer or more casual lower tier players. Because there were a lot more of them. Those who were higher tier moved on to battle Kaezul and his forces while the rest stayed behind and exp'd in Dalaya.

Short of overgrowth and first ruins bloodfires, long standing players don't really exp in Dalaya at all anymore. They're all in Ikisith. The reasons? More exp points to be had sure... but mainly the farm-able loot dollars that come from the Ikisith exp zones. Nowadays the majority of players who actively play with very few exceptions, are at the very least flagged to be able to port up to the Murk and/or Dreadlands. This is no quick or simple feat for new players. People coming into the game today without knowing someone who plays already to twink them out will have a tough time even completing the 6 man for the MQ in Undercaverns. Let alone fire up a group that can even manage to survive the deepfiends on the way into the castle in FR...

I have seen countless times again and again new players just not be able to go on exp groups with longstanding players because they aren't murk or refuge flagged. I'm sure there are many ways to deal with this. One would be to unnerf the ports back to how they were originally implemented and allow newer toons/players to invis and avoid being killed by frogs or refuge guards on porting up. This seems the most likely choice and least impacting to balance, lore, etc.

Another possibility which seems less likely since Ikisith 2.0 is on the way and it seems to be the SoD of the foreseeable future... Increase the vendor value of dropped goods and experience reward in the less often visited zones like Fire Grotto, Everchill, etc. A simpler solution might be to just increase the rates at which mobs in these zones drop tomes to more closely resemble an ikisith zone.

I'm sure this topic is in some other players minds too so hopefully people will chime in with some good ideas or thoughts on the matter.
 
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I don't really think the older zones are poorly balanced on the whole. They are balanced around lower tier exp groups and when I did them at those tiers the rewards were actually decent.

I do definitely agree about iksith further isolating new players. Allowing players to port invis makes sense to me. You could even add a see invis roamer guard so sometimes players die for porting w/o faction. Having to drag a corpse and Rez is 100x better than just saying "sorry dude you can't hang of with us because you havnt done this quest". A death would encourage a player to go back and do the quest later. Being excluded for not having completed a (not so simple) quest might just cause someone to get frustrated and lose interest / quit.
 
There needs to be a mop to Ikisith, or at the very least the docks that go there. It is a very long and hugely scary run for a new player. The ports to Ikisith blocking unflagged players is a really really bad /dumb idea. Maybe there is some good lore reason for doing this but you are making the game unplayable for new players. This was all kind of cool in concept when it first went in but that time is not now. The murk portal needs to allow un-factioned players at the very least and there needs to be a mop entrance or two in Ikisith.

Make it some big player event to open the mop to ikisith if you really want to.
 
Kedrin said:
Running three zones from a MoP is too hard.
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no running three zones from a mop and then running 3 or 4 more (huge) zones to get where you are going from the docks, is pretty substantial. If I am in athica and I can't port in even though i have done hates fury and I want to go to Kaesora I have to go athica->mop->sadri->sundered mountains->oasis->north wastes->prophets->the murk->field of bone->kaesora.
 
burt6 said:
no running three zones from a mop and then running 3 or 4 more (huge) zones to get where you are going from the docks, is pretty substantial. If I am in athica and I can't port in even though i have done hates fury and I want to go to Kaesora I have to go athica->mop->sadri->sundered mountains->oasis->north wastes->prophets->the murk->field of bone->kaesora.
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And this is precisely why some central zone in this place needs a bank and basic reagents / supplies. For new people without all of their gate necks, it is an egregious pain in the ass to run around up there, especially if you're also having to keep track of 9 million fetch quest items.
 
So my 2cp, as a player who started last November --- I'm not sure you've identified real problems. By the time I hit lvl 55 and starting poking around Ikisith I had 3 gate necks (Grobb / Newport / Kelethin) -- and never had problems getting around. Granted I probably made much better use of information on the wiki than other new players do.

burt6 said:
no running three zones from a mop and then running 3 or 4 more (huge) zones to get where you are going from the docks, is pretty substantial. If I am in athica and I can't port in even though i have done hates fury and I want to go to Kaesora I have to go athica->mop->sadri->sundered mountains->oasis->north wastes->prophets->the murk->field of bone->kaesora.
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To me all this proves is that starting / binding in Athica if you want to do Ikisith content is inefficient. But -- shocker -- one doesn't have to use Athica as the point-from-which-all-things-begin.

When I was first exploring Ikisith I bound in NWoT at the docks, then when I found the non-kos bind point in Murk, I moved my bind point to there. As a Rogue, to bank/resupply I'd gate neck to Newport and then use the translocater in the caster guild to port to bind. Caster classes I imagine would be even simpler.

burt6 said:
Maybe there is some good lore reason for doing this but you are making the game unplayable for new players.
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The only thing that made the game "unplayable" was a lack of groupage at lower levels. And unplayable is a bit of a strong word there -- until I found enough people to play with, a lot of content was impossible for me to take on, but I found a good deal that was. Again, I probably took more advantage of wiki info than others. And while LFG, I spent a good deal of playtime exploring and poking around areas to find things I could do as a solo Rogue.
 
I really loved going through Ikisith for the first time, yeah, it was shitty, but I felt really accomplished at breaking into that level of content. I'd hate to lose that type of fun in this game.

"sorry dude you can't hang of with us because you havnt done this quest"
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To me this is motivation to actually do the quests and learn the game and lore, not an oppressive thing.
Your not a real high tier character unless you have a muddy shield or equivalent.
 
DodoBot said:
And this is precisely why some central zone in this place needs a bank and basic reagents / supplies. For new people without all of their gate necks, it is an egregious pain in the ass to run around up there, especially if you're also having to keep track of 9 million fetch quest items.
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Bro, I specifically split this off so as not to pollute your thread. please don't pollute mine lol. these are separate topics.
 
Dev-Solo said:
A death would encourage a player to go back and do the quest later. Being excluded for not having completed a (not so simple) quest might just cause someone to get frustrated and lose interest / quit.
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I like where you are going with this actually. Maybe instead of the villages repelling players pre-port they do so after zoning? So insert like 10 random yet dangerous locations outside of the cities that players who havent completed entry quests get "warped to" upon coming too close to port in areas. The lore for something like this is already in place it just completely prevents players from making the jump. "A magical force repels you from the Gruplok village"... You appear close to kaezul camp, shattered gruplok camp, etc. (insert dangerous area here).
 
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