Friday with Means - July 3rd, 2009 - German Server and AO Learning Curve

[Keldros]

But if they cost the same, take buildings the same and let you raid the same...

Instanced cities can't have "the same benefits as all the others" because all the others are not the same.

The "real cities" are all different shapes and sizes, plus some of them are in more convenient locations than others. It's been a few years since I checked, but prices (and upkeep) vary from one city to another.

[Esproc]

Well if it's a randomly generated mission I'd assume they'd just use what was already there and you could get any in game mission loot, sure the implants would be random, but they'd be there heh.

Would fix the ammo problem for sure, and give everyone armors to choose from.

Just a bucket of win overall.

Having a chain of islands would be nice too.

Though I'd have that weird door on the back of the main island be the 'depot' used for missions and have the smaller side islands be less inhabited.

Maybe the smaller ones could fall outside of the meager suppression field provided there ^^

Instancing could be a problem though short of meeting up inside the tower before heading out.
Would be nice on island at least to have all sides share a channel for chat.
Would make it easier for the few people interested in helping new players to do so, as there aren't always that many on a given side who will/can help someone.

Instanced cities can't have "the same benefits as all the others" because all the others are not the same.

The "real cities" are all different shapes and sizes, plus some of them are in more convenient locations than others. It's been a few years since I checked, but prices (and upkeep) vary from one city to another.

True enough, though if you could access the shops from serenity woompah-ing the cities location is irrelevant.
My cost comment was based on someone mentioning that instanced cities were priced the same, sorry I didn't take the time to check on it first.

With all locations being equal that leaves you with shape, size, and price/upkeep.

Shape only affects the alien pathing in as far as where that puts the 'buildings' the game thinks are there.

Size as far as I'm aware basically limits how many buildings you can put in considering how few are in any way useful I believe most of the smaller ones could handle the essential buildings.

Price/Upkeep, not really sure how that was determined, most likely size/location are the primary parts of this.
If it was scaled to the buildings placed then there would be no problem.

[Notcrattey]

Cool free months

[tacoleet]

Only thing that makes me nervous is when bots become relatively cheap, and people stop farming cities, how are people going to afford upkeep on them each month?

Seems like only raidbot or instance stuff will be expensive.. and even then that will get chinese farmed to hell. Symbiants and AI Bots/Armor seemed the best way to get creds, but with instancing that will change. Even now the price for symbiants has dropped 50 to 93%. About 50% for bots.

Yes we can get org bank creds from commission.. but if prices go down significantly it won't really be enough for small orgs.

Great news for getting rid of chinese farmers with more than one city.. but horrid for orgs with less than 50 members.

[lugoman]

The way to get new players some help on AO's learning curve is to get them to team with experienced players. Problem is experienced players mainly want to do hecks/tigs at low levels as they give better xp. So one thing you need to do is raise xp on rk FOR TEAMS only. Maybe make xp scale with the number of people in the team or else people still wont team others. Ive seen many people sitting outside 2m statue while an OST runs by followed by only 2 others. They could easily have recruited a full team but for some reason they dont.

[Mastablasta]

Only thing that makes me nervous is when bots become relatively cheap, and people stop farming cities, how are people going to afford upkeep on them each month?

So you don't think that people can get a handful of million a month? A whole group of people?

[Keldros]

Only thing that makes me nervous is when bots become relatively cheap, and people stop farming cities, how are people going to afford upkeep on them each month?

Farm other expensive items elsewhere?

The "I'm so numb at this point I'm not even capable of comprehending non heckler content" crowd will always need nanos and gear.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

One way to tone down the WTF factor, would be to eliminate ALL TSing components that drop in missions and off mobs say, sub lvl 100.

One of my first char's was an engineer (prof in RL), and I was so happy to see all these gun parts dropping, unfortunately, after attempting to Rclick several items together and realizing nothing fit together, that this game was WAY harder to figure out than what I thought. Also, I had read about the engi gun, and, I was able to build one, but, it took all of my credits trying to find the appropriate QL irreparable river MV, bah, as I recall it drove me batty.

If engi's/crats/agents any other squishy newb prof is available to start with, there definitly needs to be very good direction early on in the game so players don't attempt so much early. Consider:

TSing= 100x more complication than implants and
implants = 100x complicated than learning to fight and use stims.

Most players won't be able to afford implants anyway, one thing that would make new players slightly more able to play effectively is a NPC who gives mission to retrieve (for example: 5 tokens from missions), who then, as a reward provides three useful implants for the prof (not the ones in the basic implant shop (rework those plz), and has a corresponding NPC near the clinic in the basic shop to help you equip.

There should be other missions up to level 50 or so which provide insight to other places to go, like: go talk to the crazy woman in Newlands to try to find out what happpened to the Neleb people, or, retrieve a specific item from totw, for a credits/XP reward... or tokens, etc. grinding missions at low levels is ridiculously slow, for little rewards.

.

[Tazalanche]

Lots of good ideas have been posted over the weekend. If Means only approved of 10% of them, the game would still benefit greatly.

[Hellsranger]

The biggest problem i see with n00b content is the bewildering array of items in the game, and 99.9% of them are useless. For a few laughs and because Iw as a bit bored with the TL7 SK grind, I rolled a smg soldier on newb island. While there I ran into a brand new player who had created his first character an hour before hand. He sent me a tell because I was also a soldier and asked if I had any tips. I spent a couple of hours running aorund newb island showing him where stuff was, getting his weapons upgraded, and showing him how to get the newb armor set. The next day, he was back and sending me tells, he'd left n00b island and promptly got lost running aorund outside Rome. Again. I helped him out, spent maybe 250k of my own money getting him a few bits and pieces to get himstarted like imps, medsuit, ammo, and gave him a old Div9 i had in my bank. Here are my observations from helping him and the questions he asked.

* low level armor - The ONLY shop bought armor that is worth wearing is a medsuit. The extra healing that you get with better stims far out-weighs the extra damage you take for having no AC's. Everyone who has played the game for a length of time learns this.

* low level weapons - again, the shop bought weapons are useless. Damage is too low and often they force you to spread ip across a silly range of skills to use them. New players having no knowledge of the game are mislead into thinking they need more skills raised than they really need to play their toon.

* implants - too expensive. To grind the credits for a ql20 set of imps, you'll likely be level 30 and needing ql50's. In addition, discounting the concrete cushion approach to credit grinding, the reward from missions is too low compared to the experience gain.

* missions - New players have no way of knowing what they are, why they should do them, or what they can gain. They don't understand the difference between individual or team missions. They also have no clue where to get one.

Here are my suggestions to 'fix' these problems for new players.

* Carve the items DB into tiny pieces and scrap every item in game that is far outdated and useless to a current player.

* Weapons - ditch all those under-powered ridiculous RK weapons you tradeskill from a gazillion randomly dropping items and stop selling the useless junk in terminals. Sell the weapons in the terminals that are upgradable with the 000 weapon upgrade kits that were introduced. Have the bosses/targets in mission dropping a random weapon upgrade kit.

* Create a new channel called "1-50 N00b Help". Have ALL low level encounter quest chain mobs spam this channel announcing that right clicking them will start a quest to gain special items or whatever. Make this channel default for all players like the newb chat/faction channels do. This channel could also spam a random helpful tip for new players.

* Perhaps in addition to the above channel, create a n00b channel for each prof that can be logged into by other players of this profession. Make it a default activated channel for new players of each prof. Profession communities and Professionals could supply a set of tips for new players to their prof that could be spammed to it also.

* Similiar to weapons, introduce armor upgrades similiar to the 000 weapon upgrades. Have them update old RK armors to add things like HP, Nano, abilities or skills. The final update could even make the armor a leveling item upto a certain QL. For example, applying all 4 upgrades to a ql10 armor would allow you to level it to a max of ql50, similiar to the living cyber armor.

* Create a REAL instruction book for the game. It should visually identify those essential items like mission terminals, the first few quest mobs, have maps you can print with uniques etc marked for Newb Island, Rome, Old Athens and Newland, and it should definitely include profession guides written by the community with the 'best of' advise for new players. New players should be specifically pointed to helpful fansites like AO-Universe and Auno.

I also love the complexity of AO, and i don't want to see it nerfed, but new players should be eased into it. If new players have the option to be babysat just a little bit, the whole learning curve could be made a bit shallower without messing things up for those just rolling alts.

[Lheann]

I have suggested in game suggestions and other threads that the new comers armor should be quest upgradeable so that at least two more stages of leveling are available.

My suggestions look like this:
Newcomers Armor QL1 to QL15 (same as now)
Enhanced Newcomers Armor QL16 to QL30 (Add 2 NCU and +2 first aid per piece)
Advanced RK Armor QL31 to QL60 (Add 2 NCU and +HP = QL and +2 first aid per piece)
Elite RK Armor QL61 to QL99 (Add 2 NCU and +HP = QL and +1 Str/Sta/Agi/Int and +2 first aid per piece)

***The first aid buff is to make it attractive over the med suit. The medsuit is still better treatment buffing but this strikes a balance.

This takes a player right up to Tier One Armor. And the progression of leveling armor continues. The suggestion leaves Miy's / AI / Predators armor all as better choices but provides viable armor. The AC's on QL99 Elite RK Armor would be just under Tier 1 armor at QL100. Further the quest that gives the TS item that enables the next stage of the armor should be a 30-45 minute quest doable by someone that on the edge of being able to use the upgraded armor. This alone would be a great a credit saver in the game for lowbies.

As for implants. Everyone is suggesting that Noob Island should have something that helps explain these and is viable. So here goes.

Add a quest that requires killing say 10 Scouts and then the boss alien on Noob Island. The Reward would be a Chest and Head and Feet implant. These would be special as they would be leveling implants that QL1 to QL50. Further they would be more like symbs than implants. But here are my suggestions.

*** The Head Unit ***
QL 1 NI Head Unit
Treatment 2
Computer Lit 2
All Nano Skills 2
Int 1
Psy 1
Sen 1

Levels Up To

QL50 NI Head Unit
Treatment 25
Computer Lit 25
All Nano Skills 10
Int 5
Psy 5
Sen 5

*** The Chest Unit ***
QL 1 NI Chest Unit
HP 10
Body Dev 2
Str 1
Sta 1
Agi 1
Nano 10

Levels Up To

QL50 NI Chest Unit
HP 120
Body Dev 10
Str 5
Sta 5
Agi 5

*** The Foot Unit ***
QL1 NI Foot Unit
Run Speed 50
Evade Close 5
Dodge Range 5
Duck Explosion 5

Levels Up To

QL50 NI Foot Unit
Run Speed 50
Evade Close 15
Dodge Range 15
Duck Explosion 15

*****The run speed will really help newbies and while some may think it is a bit much I really think being able to move around the cities in a quicker and more enjoyable pace will help retain new players.

So there you have my Noob Island Implant idea. Further the NPC that gave the quest would also give a treatment buff and explain how to install them and give some general info for players about implants. Again these are to help new players get started and save some credits. Further later on they are nice buffing items that will help players get into other items. I don't see these as unbalancing as all players would be able to get them with stats similar to QL50 implants for use players would out grow them by TL3.

For those suggesting the -000 weapons be made more available. Please go try to get one for your toon without the help of your main. It will be faster to just removed them from the game then fix the crappy method of getting them

I suggested in the NI make over thread that the NI weapons needed to also have upgrades and that at least 2 or 3 more stages of upgrading them should be available. I really think that a new player should have a decent weapon through level 25 (RK and SL decent) and 2 more upgrades to the NI weapons ending in something like 15 to 45 damage range (just under ql25 kinetic axes for those that need a reference pt) and 1/1 speed with proper special for the weapon/class would be awesome.

The NI Soldier gun needs fling dropped and FA added.
The NI weapons need a min damage of 5 after the upgrade and that would be inline with the much better chimera weapons from days of SL. Of course I rather see my above suggestion for the NI guns.

The NI ncu belt quest should give 2 NCU's to the player so they can populate it. Makes a new player feel good that they have the belt fully populated and 3 NCU is NOT a game breaker when you consider how nice it will feel for the new players.

NI needs a bracer like the SL backyard and the SL backyard needs shoulder pads like NI has. 15 AAD at early levels is really nice and with some NPC dialog to explain one of the most important stats for defense as the game progresses.

[Ciex]

As a man grown in communist system who knows how do fake elections look like i simply dont brelive that over 50% of Germans voted no for server transfer. They may not like to have their server merged but having less options (transfer) to escape from it lacks logic

TBH i dont care if the whole population of rk3 (10? 20?) gets an option to transfer or is merged because it wont make any difference anyway but hell, voting no for transfer is like saying "please take away my passport, i dont want to have an option to cross borders". It doesnt happen in normal world.

[Javafan]

I really prefer 1k players and game as it is than 30k players and a wannabe WOW game

Hell... if they make AO a tad easier, it still won't be like WoW. But I'd rather have those 30k players that can learn in time, than 1k people that play AO since the beginnings of time.

By the way... No one asked for making the overall game easier. What most people have been shouting was to make it easier in the first part so that new players don't get discouraged. They just have to have the game explained better and some shortcuts for starting as a new player and this does not amount to making the game easier.

Having to grind 3-4 days at lvl 15 in RK missions so you can get some lvl 50 imps, some missmatched armor pieces that will be outleveled in about 2-3 hours of effective gameplay is no sign of game skill. You'll have outleveled the items you wanted to buy by the time you actually get the money to acquire those items.

Complexity is all nice and dandy, but it goes away after you do it for about 4-6-10 times. I usually get my toons with ql 75 imps by lvl 15-20. Sure, it was hell when I did it for the first time and I had to gather twinking implants, roll lowbie missions for buffing armor and the like. After that I've had it easier and easier. Now it takes me 30mins to get the ql 75 imps on my lvl 15-20 toon, so take that "complexity".

Same with higher level twinking... people ain't inventing it at the moment and nobody is trying to reinvent the wheel or the hot baths. They use the same recipes that have been discovered in the beginnings of AO.

And regarding the WoW comparison. I watched some of my friends play WoW as it does not appeal me very much (I don't get along very well with fantasy games). There's few aspects that are easy there from what I have seen: you get a lot of soloable quests that yield decent rewards.

But I've seen my friends that are in more than decent armor die from 2-3 mobs of the same level. I've seen them die in large raids that seemed overall more complicated than AO's general type of tank-mongo-doc-heal-tank-other-press-assist macro-all-go-home-with-hawt-lewt. By the way, I found out that there is no HUGE-mongo-taunt-like-effect action in WoW.

Bottom line... AO draws its complexity from different things than WoW does. But grinding for a handful of items (not end game or state of the art) for weeks/months/years does not represent game complexity or skill.

And I don't get some old-timers are so opposed to changes: if they make it somewhat easier (I know easier depends on the point of view) to help new players catch up a bit faster with people playing for 8 years, even the old-timers would have a much easier time with their alts/rerolled toons. But then again, most old players will just go to criplers-hecks-tiigs-hecks-inf... Shortcutting the shortcuts most of the time.

[Chrys]

***The treatment buff is to make it attractive over the med suit. The medsuit is still better treatment buffing but this strikes a balance.

Surely you mean first aid...


Hellsranger's post above is simply full of awesome. Means, please reread it


Edit: For me the main reason why newbies get stuck is simple: Experienced players rerolling get out of tl1-2 within a day. Usually tl4 within a day, if they're aiming for a tl5 or 220. The newbies will never get much chance to learn from them.

Last time I rolled a new toon, I teamed with a nice newbie in Shadowlands, didn't go particularly fast by my standards, but 2 days later he sent me a tell saying he'd outlevelled his weapon. It was my fault of course, I wanted to get out of tl2 within a day. And there was absolutely no chance at all for him to team up with me after the first two days (he had 5 levels on me at start, two days later, with casual playing, I was beyond teaming range with him - I think I was 80-90 to his 40ish).

Nothing about this game can change the fact that you can simply bypass everything very easily at low levels if you know how (and worse if you pocket).

[Lheann]

Surely you mean first aid...

Yep that is what i meant and I editted to say that. See what posting at midnight does to you.

[Astera]

Great post, hellsranger. I actually put points into swimming when I started this game because it was suggested in the tips at the time.

...great ideas...

I said a long time ago that RK newbie armor should level with you to 30. AI launched and there was new backyard armor. I guess it was a popular theme.

I simply love your implant idea...but (there's always a but)...I think the head implant would be a bit confusing for new players. Here you have this head unit that adds something to all nano skills. When froobs have to find something new, they are going to realize that they are going to be severely limited in what they can add.

This is going to lead to a little confusion. If you use ql10 profession specific implants with lower requirements you save a little work for FC. Sell them in boxes, just like the nanos on the islands.

[Mastablasta]

Complexity is all nice and dandy, but it goes away after you do it for about 4-6-10 times. I usually get my toons with ql 75 imps by lvl 15-20. Sure, it was hell when I did it for the first time and I had to gather twinking implants, roll lowbie missions for buffing armor and the like. After that I've had it easier and easier. Now it takes me 30mins to get the ql 75 imps on my lvl 15-20 toon, so take that "complexity".

You seem to misunderstand, complexity does not "go away" because you know how a system works. If it all changed so you had to figure out everything from square 0 every time, it would not be complex, but just a system of randoms.

[Siahanor]

As a man grown in communist system who knows how do fake elections look like i simply dont brelive that over 50% of Germans voted no for server transfer. They may not like to have their server merged but having less options (transfer) to escape from it lacks logic

TBH i dont care if the whole population of rk3 (10? 20?) gets an option to transfer or is merged because it wont make any difference anyway but hell, voting no for transfer is like saying "please take away my passport, i dont want to have an option to cross borders". It doesnt happen in normal world.

Well, if FC had implemented transfers like they promised years ago, then we might be able to see if the poll was rigged or true. But since transfers will likely never happen ( even though they got 'em working just fine in Age of Failure, imagine that ), no point in worrying about it. Those unhappy enough with having to play by themselves on RK3 will use the option which is available to them ( quit ) and the rest will tough it out or follow suit.

[Obtena]

Really, the best resource for newbies is these forums. Any question can be asked about anything and most information is searchable and in here somewhere or a link at least is available. IMO, the only thing needed is for FC to link these forums address to certain visible places in the game. Once I discovered these forums, I was set free.

[Mastablasta]

Really, the best resource for newbies is these forums. Any question can be asked about anything and most information is searchable and in here somewhere or a link at least is available. IMO, the only thing needed is for FC to link these forums address to certain visible places in the game. Once I discovered these forums, I was set free.

It's bad design to just link to a forum instead of providing the information inside the game.