Eliminate the starter pack confusion

[marct]

Nevrax:

There have been a bunch of new players lately, and I must say anyone that asks gets pointed in the same direction for starter packs:

go 1 magic 1 craft 1 harvest for steady lvling up no need to pick melee since ya can do this anyway, doing it this way will save ya bout 80 sp i think

There is no need to add this confusion, and potential penalty at your first experience with the game.

Since you have said you are looking to make the start more inviting to new players, I think my suggestion below would have some merit.


Forget the starter packs. Give everyone the basic abilities to Fight(dagger & accurate attack), Magic(Amps and Acid spell), Craft(Choice of crafting tool and plan), and Harvest(Pick, Extract, and Prospect). You tout a classless system make that evident immediately.

I think the one thing you could do after making the above change to provide the basics in each of these is to give the choice of 2 Add-ons. (There are several ways to implement this. You could give 40 generic Skill points and let them choose immediately from a short list of specific skills, and then do the same for weapons/etc.)

This could all be tied in with background information to explain the skill and stanza system as well as these basic skills so someone can choose without feeling lost.

Say you have 15 or so other items to choose from and you can choose 2 of them.

Some ideas.
* A 1-hand sword
* A second dagger
* The increase Damage skill
* A better Amp
* The Fear Spell
* A HP Heal Spell
* Another crafting plan
* More generic Raw material
* Choice of a Bonus (HP bonus, Sap Bonus, Focus Bonus, Stam Bonus) for your crafted items.
* The 5m prospect skill
* The upto Fine or Fine only prospect brick
...


Just my thoughts on making the start more fun. I am looking forward to everyone else's feedback.

Noin.

[sehracii]

I agree.

The starter packs really do nothing.

At best, your first 5 levels are easier in one selected skill. At worst, you don't even get a chance to try a whole tree, like crafting, until you're 20 or 30 levels into the game. (and then it's still hard to scrape together 50sp without hindering progress in the branch it came from)

Granted skill points are in abundance the farther you get into the game, but who wants to wait until that point?

[caitiff]

I think he makes a good point. I started out w/ all but crafting at first. Did this hurt me? no. The one thing that could have resulted though is I may never have tried crafting. When starting this game I was all for fighting didnt want to do much harvesting or crafting. Now I do mainly harvesting and crafting, I love a new part of the game.
So say I picked 2 melee and 1 mag. Now being all for fighting I don't try the others at all. I would be missing out on a huge part of the game. Sure it's not for everyone but you truely dont know if its for you or not if you dont try it for a bit. Giving everyone a start in all would help in the sense that it would be easier to get a full on meleer to try the harvesting or crafting out a little. This would give them a better view of the full spectra the game has to offer. Also giving them some SP or whatnot to get something out of the list would be good too. Do it from when they go to the town welcomer or whatever, give them a reason to start talking to people basically. Maybe just send him out to kill one yubo and bring back the loot. Yes its real easy but then it would also get them going on the missions which is another big part about the game. Sadly I have yet to get too into them, eventually I will but it would be nice to get more people interested earlier.

Noin, I think your idea is a good one

[akm72]

I agree, everyone gets this wrong the 1st time and regrets their choices. You should give everyone the basic starter skills in harvest/magic and craft (equivalent to having a single pack in each one), but let them choose from a range of different kit or extra skills to start out with.

[amitst]

I think whatever you pick is fine!!! leave the starter packs, i like them

i like being able to pick 3 crafter packs and start the game crafting 20k dapper worth of goods, and getting a good starter weapon before i even kill a yubo
i have never been at a loss for skill points, there is no skill point competition, and you have lots of extra later in the game anyways

giving them a choice of stanzas will only add to the confusion!!

let nevrax work on the important content stuff!!!!!!

[basicart]

I think whatever you pick is fine!!! leave the starter packs, i like them

i like being able to pick 3 crafter packs and start the game crafting 20k dapper worth of goods, and getting a good starter weapon before i even kill a yubo
i have never been at a loss for skill points, there is no skill point competition, and you have lots of extra later in the game anyways

giving them a choice of stanzas will only add to the confusion!!

let nevrax work on the important content stuff!!!!!!

You have alot extra later because you are higher lvl, when first starting out ya need every sp there is and if ya make the mistake of going 3 melee its gonna put ya behind everyone else to start with

[borg9]

I agree, everyone gets this wrong the 1st time and regrets their choices. You should give everyone the basic starter skills in harvest/magic and craft (equivalent to having a single pack in each one), but let them choose from a range of different kit or extra skills to start out with.

Having been through the 'new char' creation system many many times now, its second natural to me, so its easy to pick fault and to defend for differing reasons.

If I want to be a pure harvester, the 3xHarvest is a real boost to this skill, the same is true of the crafting packs (go go gen mat!).

Experience tells me that if I pick 2xharvest and 1xcraft - I can get 'spare' skill point very very fast. I am going to buy HP's what every skill tree I choose as my main skill so repaying a tree that donated the 50sp for a start pack is easy.

I remember the first ever character I created, I didn't know you could move the bars (Oh happy memories). With the knowlege of the game I have now, I think I could get a char to the same lvl 20 (all branches) point in roughly the same time period regardless of starter packs.

I remember being gutted when the took away XP from using enchantments (It was possible in to old days to start the magic tree with no starter pack). However its a two edged sword and now with a heal on my sword I can keep my team mates health up, without disrupting my melee XP. There is good and bad in everything.

The inherent weakness of a kit system is that first time through you still have no real idea which to pick. The strengths are that they are much more customisable (I like both systems so, go go personal choice)

I guess if we could implant the message in new players that:

YOU CAN'T NERF YOUR CHAR,

its just not possible then things would be easier. Picking a new plan, instead of increasing you craft skill level will slow you progess till you get 3 more levels, but realistically that a maximum of an hours playtime and what is an hour when it will take you weeks/months to reach the higher levels.


So I am in support or any improvements to the starting systems, even if most players won't read/take time on the first run through to study whats there. I know that I was so keen to get started I didn't read anything as I went through the first time.

[sehracii]

I remember being gutted when the took away XP from using enchantments (It was possible in to old days to start the magic tree with no starter pack). However its a two edged sword and now with a heal on my sword I can keep my team mates health up, without disrupting my melee XP. There is good and bad in everything.

Isn't this changed? I thought using enchants is back to giving XP.

Although I'm curious now if you can start the magic tree again without buying the atarter pack?

[suib0m]

In addition to the fine statements above, I think it would be a vast improvement to the starting scene to set the default channel to the "User" channel with "Region" being the default communication path. As it is, new users are stuck in "Around" which contributes greatly to the very quiet and very empty feeling the newbie islands get sometimes (even when there's 4 or 5 players on).

[larwood]

Isn't this changed? I thought using enchants is back to giving XP.

Although I'm curious now if you can start the magic tree again without buying the atarter pack?

No... its not changed. They said it in the patch notes, and I tested it with a new char... but nothing from enchanted heals or attacks.