Learning Curve for first timers

Titanas

Titanas

Dalayan Elder
I'd just like to throw it out there I've had about 3 friends try to play SOD and gave up by level 2 because the've died so many times starting off. Any chance at increasing your starting skills to be maxed for a level 4 or 5 so that you don't die fighting your first mob. For any one that didn't play live it is a bit unforgiving when you first start. Not only is every thing completely foreign but just about everything kills you from even con snakes to having attack on while talking to guards. Starting with skills at 20 or 15 or 25 would give new players a bit of forgiveness while trying to learn the game without off setting anything. Rab the rat might be easier to kill but thats about it no one kills him any ways.
 
try to stay to the mobs you know already or be ready to die is what i would say.

You shouldnt really have trouble killing white cons at level 2, but if you really do then you are probably doin something wrong. If you have friends starting up also, just group with them, later in the game you will have to group. Just read the wiki and the tutorials and use /ooc if you have questions.
 
I am confused by this account because I have started several newbie characters in the last few months for fun, and had no problems at all. I have never had problems with white cons unless I was already at low hp or they ganged up on me. Note: I do not twink my characters at level 1 (if ever).

This could be a function of the newbie zone I start in, I have a soft spot in my heart for the Newport Gates -> Centaur Hills -> Blackburrow progression which I have found very forgiving. I do know that others who have started in Grobb and Oggok have found the newbie ground challenging (but more rewarding if you can adapt to them). I can't speak for Sadri, Greater Faydark, or Steamfont areas as starting zones.

Maybe if you provided more details we could find the root of the problem? I don't think it's a global issue, but I do agree that not killing newbies right off the bat is a great idea.
 
If you are attempting to kill Rabb the Rat at level 1 solo, we have found the problem.

However, there are plenty of people that have started SoD without playing live, and have played through fine. Of course everything is foreign, it would be that way with any new game. Further, setting skills to 15 or 20 wont do a whole lot. At least, not as much as you think, but doing so is also not the right solution. Same reason you don't start out with 1000 platinum, an argument which could be made using your same logic "My friends quit because they were poor".

While I understand the idea behind your argument, it doesn't hold water.
 
Stemfont area is very rough to start out. mainly because of those damn wandring skellies you have to try and train to the wandering guard.... However, the revenge, when I got to level 4 was pretty sweet.
 
I recall Sadri wasn't to bad starting off, thiers is a bit of a learning curve thier once you got past like 10th level and start wandering in that zone taht goes all the way up to high 50s level mobs LOL.

Newport>centuar>Black Burrow is by far the most newbie friendly starting progression and definitely shouldn't have any problems killing even cons.

Rabb the Rat is brutal even for a twink solo (unless you go wayyyy over board). But hes a Adept your suppose to group him. *shrug*
 
Not being able to definitively differentiate between mob difficulty coupled with the fact that new players do not possess as good control over their character and it's abilities does make starting out hard.

There is also a high probability of a new players dying frequently early on, thus having to sit through death effects when they're really focused on trying to learn instead of wait out some arbitrary time limit. I don't see how a new player could think that death effects are fun, when all they are trying to do is learn. Instead I feel many will find this disappointing for a new game they are trying to pick up, and be more inclined to quit.

To remedy this, I would remove death effects and make exp debt less significant for players level 5 and below. Implement more messages, for example when they reach level 6, a message could display "You are no longer blessed with Althuna's grace, dying at this point will result in temporary death fatigue."

I would also support an increased skill-up rate for newer players. This could be something such as, the first 20 skill ups of all combat related skills are easier to obtain.

Another thing that could help newer players is if the starting area mobs gave them a basic quest for some very basic armor. For example, in each starting area one of the guards could give quests that required 3 snake scales, and on competition the guard gives you a piece of cloth armor of your choice and a marginal amount of experience. This would be in addition to the already implemented newbie quests.

Lastly, upon login to the game for players level 5 and below, a message displays, "Welcome to Shards of Dalaya! If you are new here, please type "/cm guide" for helpful information and tips." Within this guide would be the basics or "EQ for idiots guide."

These suggestions should reduce the attrition of new players while not making the game significantly easier. More so, they are things that are conducive to bringing a new player up to speed on how the game works, what their character is capable of doing, while providing them with easily accessible, accurate information.
 
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stope21 said:
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There is also a high probability of a new players dying frequently early on, thus having to sit through death effects when they're really focused on trying to learn instead of wait out some arbitrary time limit. I don't see how a new player could think that death effects are fun, when all they are trying to do is learn. Instead I feel many will find this disappointing for a new game they are trying to pick up, and be more inclined to quit.

To remedy this, I would remove death effects and make exp debt less significant for players level 5 and below. Implement more messages, for example when they reach level 6, a message could display "You are no longer blessed with Althuna's grace, dying at this point will result in temporary death fatigue."

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I always liked this feature in other MMORPGs, its certainly helpful in reduceing new player discougment. I certainly dont' think we need to worry about 4th level toons Zerging a Gnoll Guard for phat lewts or anything :)
 
Kirin Folken said:
I always liked this feature in other MMORPGs, its certainly helpful in reduceing new player discougment. I certainly dont' think we need to worry about 4th level toons Zerging a Gnoll Guard for phat lewts or anything :)
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HEY! Zerging is a strat that belongs to PR, and we have NO shareholders. so keep your hands off our leet strats!

but ya, removing DF for the first 5 levels would be nice. if you decide to implement that idiots guide thing i could help write stuff and tips
 
stope21 said:
Not being able to definitively differentiate between mob difficulty coupled with the fact that new players do not possess as good control over their character and it's abilities does make starting out hard.

There is also a high probability of a new players dying frequently early on, thus having to sit through death effects when they're really focused on trying to learn instead of wait out some arbitrary time limit. I don't see how a new player could think that death effects are fun, when all they are trying to do is learn. Instead I feel many will find this disappointing for a new game they are trying to pick up, and be more inclined to quit.

To remedy this, I would remove death effects and make exp debt less significant for players level 5 and below. Implement more messages, for example when they reach level 6, a message could display "You are no longer blessed with Althuna's grace, dying at this point will result in temporary death fatigue."

I would also support an increased skill-up rate for newer players. This could be something such as, the first 20 skill ups of all combat related skills are easier to obtain.

Another thing that could help newer players is if the starting area mobs gave them a basic quest for some very basic armor. For example, in each starting area one of the guards could give quests that required 3 snake scales, and on competition the guard gives you a piece of cloth armor of your choice and a marginal amount of experience. This would be in addition to the already implemented newbie quests.

Lastly, upon login to the game for players level 5 and below, a message displays, "Welcome to Shards of Dalaya! If you are new here, please type "/cm guide" for helpful information and tips." Within this guide would be the basics or "EQ for idiots guide."

These suggestions should reduce the attrition of new players while not making the game significantly easier. More so, they are things that are conducive to bringing a new player up to speed on how the game works, what their character is capable of doing, while providing them with easily accessible, accurate information.
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You sir just hit like 15 nails with 15 hammers!
This is what I'm talking about Players completely new to SOD and never played Live.
Great Ideas.
 
Ikaa|LoveYums said:
Same reason you don't start out with 1000 platinum, an argument which could be made using your same logic "My friends quit because they were poor".
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True This...

I still think that any improvements made to help the advancement of new characters and lessen the level of discouragement while trying to learn the game can only be viewed as a benefit to the server. It won't effect people already playing at higher levels. Lets face it, if you were going to roll an alt, you would have already leveled a toon and would know what to do and where to go anyway - the benefit would be marginal for 5 levels or so (big deal).
 
30 seconds of DF for every level up to 10.

XP debt is already easily overcome in the beginning, I don't think that needs to be altered.

The Dream should have taught them what they need to know to level in any newbie hunting grounds. I am well aware that some noob grounds are harder than others (half of my toons are Barbs, try starting off in EFP!). I advised everyone I got playing the game to roll a human warrior, level him or her to 10 to get the feel of it, THEN roll up the toon that you want.

To the OP: I hate that your friends quit. And I understand the reasoning behind them doing so. This game, in the original Live iteration and here, does indeed have a steep learning curve. I hope you can convince your friends to come back and play.
 
What about modifying "The Dream" to be a little bit more of a tutorial?

Technically the first challenge is to walk up to somebody and learn how to punch them in the face, but when going through the dialog the challenge attacks first IIRC, so it isn't really teaching you about how to hit autoattack to start a fight.

Also, possibly having that first challenge instead summon 3 or 4 rats of different levels, and explain to the new player about conning a mob to determine difficulty based on color White - Yellow - Red. Make some dialog to explain to the newb they should initiate autoattack on the white mob and not the others. a lesson they can take with them into the newb zones.

Once a totally new player understand the concept of the con system, they should be fine really in any area they start in. They'd just need to pick the right targets.
 
Actually, if someone were to really modify the dream, a lot could be added to it to teach new players that may even be familiar with EQ how some of the SoD specific elements work.

For example another fight sequence where in order to "pass" the test, you must use /s 2 to kill something quickly, and then /s 3 to help with defense in another fight. Thus teaching people that are not aware of the stances the basic idea.

Maybe an optional sidequest in the dream where you can learn about the /cm listsold system by going through a simulated buying and selling of an item from a banker.

Another sequence where a trainer helps you spend your first 10 points in the /cm specialize system.
 
SoD was my first MMORPG; I don't remember it being that bad other than DF lasting forever, but that gave me plenty of wiki time. There's a lot of good info that goes untapped on the wiki/forums, and let us not forget the player-base. SoD is still a relatively small player community, and for the most part, people are very helpful, both with information and with gearing up the new guys. There's usually more than a handful of people willing to help out a new player and answer questions in Dalaya's Beginners as well...you just have to tap your resources.
 
Allielyn said:
This could be a function of the newbie zone I start in, I have a soft spot in my heart for the Newport Gates -> Centaur Hills -> Blackburrow progression
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I agree with this. Wayyy back when we only had 2 starting areas. The advantage of this was they were very polished. Right now Newport is very forgiving and newb friendly, while grobb, oggok, halas, and steamfront are kind of a mess. Ive started gnome characters in steamfront and assuming you make it to lvl 4-5 then there wasn't a logical progression past that.

Someone on IRC started a first char in halas and was having a horribly hard time. I tried to suggest heading towards newport, but how would a new player accomplish this? No MoP in halas, and making the run through black burrow at a low lvl (when you dont know anything) might as well be impossible.

Unfortunately it sounds like the OP started in Newport, so I don't know what to say about that. But, instead of running advertising campaigns, it might be equally effective to polish up the starting areas in order to bring new players to the server. What suckered me into SoD to begin with was the beauty and polish of Erudin's starting quests, combined with the dream that I might one day kill Emerald Maw. I wish everyone could have experienced how this used to be.
 
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I can say that myself and 2 friends started playing here back in 2007... We thought we had it made with our knowledge of Live... We created a group of Wiz, Enc, Nec, Clr, War and Shm. We figured dps, cc, healing, buffs, ports, we should have it made. Knowing what I do now, it prolly would have been pally, cleric, monk, monk, rog, rog, heh... but anyway. We all decided to meet up in Stinger's since more than half of us were in Grobb/Oggok.

We racked up a TON of deaths quickly and realized that while the ZEM was nice, the difficulty was rough... we also realized that not putting points into Cha meant horrible resist issues.

We finally got to like 9 or something and trudged over to Shrouded Island... this may have been the worst progression idea ever... we wiped rarely on the yard trash but as soon as we started pulling the mansion, it was 1 after another. At about this point we ended up losing everyone. I came back like 2 times and would die 15 times in a week and quit again... not blaming that on the game, I was just playing in the wrong zones and getting into bad groups.

I finally came back, managed to solo a little, got into some great Robots groups and now I'm nearing 65... my other 2 friends have quit all together.

This is just to say that I can totally see how people get frustrated... and Stinger's is not near as bad as the Halas and Underhill situations from what I remember (I tried Fearstone on a dwarf cleric and have subsequently never logged him in since, heh). But that said, I've played probably 6 characters up to / in to the 30's now and not one of them has done anything other than NP/Centaur/BB/Warrens/Warpstone/then Kaladim/King's Pass.... and I can't imagine doing any other progression because those are easy to get groups in, easy/good xp and easily reached... Other zones just really seem to pale in comparison on all factors.
 
calaran said:
We finally got to like 9 or something and trudged over to Shrouded Island... this may have been the worst progression idea ever... we wiped rarely on the yard trash but as soon as we started pulling the mansion, it was 1 after another. At about this point we ended up losing everyone. I came back like 2 times and would die 15 times in a week and quit again... not blaming that on the game, I was just playing in the wrong zones and getting into bad groups.
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Why wouldn't you blame the game for this? Or at least the zone design? I personally think shrouded Island's usefulness ends when you are high enough lvl to pull the mansion. Risk/reward balance just doesn't exist there.
 
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