Awakening - suggestions to make newbs stay

[deathshroud]

1. The new skill ui needs to be much clearer and thought out over the current one. Its way to confusing for new players to understand exactly what they are supposed to be doing when it comes to skills and what they need to train. I propose that the skill tree has all skills listed in it but those untrained are obviously greyed out. Skills which are rare show up as unknown until they are learnt to keep their mystery. This way new palyers can see the next skill in the tree even if they dont have it trained. I also suggest some quick tool tips on the skill window. Clicking one will highlight the basic skills that relate to its name. For example clicking the warrior tip will highlight skills like combat movement, combat manouvering etc. Giving a rough guide of what sort of skill the new player should train in order to succeed at his chosen proffesion.

2. Carcass, im not exactly sure what coin making mobs the devs have planned for MO but currently the skeletons dont really cut it, they drop to little and are to tough for your average new player. new players rely on carcass to make a living or chopping wood/mining. I think there should be a specific way of making money per class you choose so if you choose to be a combat char you shouldnt have to chop wood unless you want to. Carcass should be sellable directly to vendors at a signifcantly lower coin return than what you would get from a player.

3. Training dummies, training dummies act in the same way as a tree in terms of raising your stats, simply walk up to one with a sword drawn and hit use key and you will begin to flail on the training dummy increasing basic combat skills and atributes. Combat skills will only raise so far but atributes can be maxed upon a training dummy.

4. Help channel, the fledgling help channel is a nice touch for newbies to get help during play. However i beleive that veteran players should have the chance of gaining access to the help channel on a char so that they can provide useful help to noobs. Currently the gms are to busy and the only people present in the channel are newbs and newbs cant really help other newbs effectively.

5. murder penalty, the murder penalty just isnt harsh enoguh for red players, their needs to be some form of discouragment for killing each individual player as opposed to only the first 5.

6. brighten up the night time, this was talked about by henrik that the nights would indeed be brightened up and i think the perfect time to do this is with the awakening expansion.

[Dsn]

1 not sure what you mean but sounds nice.
2 yes
3 maybe
4 no one really and what am i than i help them.
5 yes
6 maybe

[zormouz]

These are all really good ideas. Not only for noobs but regular players as well. Stating up on pigs is not good gameplay at all. Nightime being so dark effectively makes people log off or cheat with gamma, which again is not good gameplay ...not to get rid of it because nighttime is a nice touch, but just brightening it would do a lot.

But instead of selling carcasses to vendors, i think just upping the skinning yields would be better. Because if there's trade brokers , i assume butchers will start putting ads for carcasses and it would be better for them to sell their. But skinning needs increased yields regardless.

edit: I wanted to add that you should be able to eat after your hunger bar is full, but you don't gain any nourishment if you eat over your hunger. Instead you gain weight. Since that's how you actually gain weight, not committing suicide and eating flour. Not sure if that goes along with your new player suggestions, but I'm sure it makes no sense to them...

[yarnevk]

1) For skill tree UI I really like this one...open up branches to see what you have to learn/read.

http://www.atrumcastellum.net/testBe...lls/skills.php

I really wish that one was in game - the one we have is so cumbersome and takes forever to go thru when managing your skills. Instead I meta-game based on cut/paste that list into word docs. Only thing I improve on it would be a summary primary skills tree - since people want to discuss those builds all the time make it cut/paste.

Even if they do not do it for the player for the unknown skills, do it for the library so people can figure out what the heck books to buy.

2) Please explain how cheap NPC butchers is better than skinning in the field. Everyone always proposes this as the noob fix - when that is what skinning is supposed to be - you get a fraction of what a full lore butcher gives you, but that is offset by doing it in the field to carry back only the valuable mats.

3) Why not make the existing combat trainer a live AI training 'dummy'. Since he could have AI in Awakening he can be programmed to stop before you die. But isn't that why we have graveyards? AFK pig combat is not going to stop for anything that cannot be done AFK sadly.

4) agreed but I think it would turn into global spam chat which is why it is controlled by mods. Add a scholar skill tree to qualify for being helper here?

5) And we need to redefine murder before we penalize it more - PVP guild battles should not be murder given they are promoted as PP contests in TC. Several recent threads proposing solutions there.

6) agreed long as my Alvarin get the night vision that turns dusk into day.

[deathshroud]

not everyone wants the skinning skill, i would take skinning in the field but chances are its harder to implement than vendors buying the carcass directly

[Qeric]

Originally Posted by deathshroud

3. Training dummies, training dummies act in the same way as a tree in terms of raising your stats, simply walk up to one with a sword drawn and hit use key and you will begin to flail on the training dummy increasing basic combat skills and atributes. Combat skills will only raise so far but atributes can be maxed upon a training dummy.

I really liked that idea, maybe make it so it can max you stats but cant raise any skills higher then lets say 60?

And possibly even making it so the guild controlling the town have the option to insert the training dummies for a CP upkeep.

And possibly adding some kind of practise range aswell for the archers aswell so they can train their archery up to a level where they can start to hunt.

That way it would give the trial and the new players players more time in actually trying/playing the game and less time mindlessly hitting on creatures with nothing to gain (or if you are lucky, a guildmate).

[deathshroud]

i would like to see training dummies as F2P structures, along with grinders/grizzly/crusher and maybe wells(gather water) the current appliance deeds to. Basically they disappear like the fireplaces unless built in close proximity or inside a house you own. The grizzly grinder and crusher are f2p anywhere like the pylons though.

[yarnevk]

Make the trial and elapsed accounts permanent F2P. That would increase population simply because noobs would not vanish every two weeks (why pay to get ganked?) and accomodate the fact that many cancel accounts waiting for expansions, bugs and fixes. The cost of not paying is the limited skill cap something worth paying to upgrade since you will get killed in PVP if you are not paying . Even the advanced player could live with the trial primary skill cap if they want to skip a few months if they do not loose all their secondaries, as it is not hard to level up from 600 to 1100 (just drain an easy to level secondary like jumping for athletics primary to reskill back up)

[SpireofSouls]

Originally Posted by yarnevk

Make the trial and elapsed accounts permanent F2P. That would increase population simply because noobs would not vanish every two weeks (why pay to get ganked?) and accomodate the fact that many cancel accounts waiting for expansions, bugs and fixes. The cost of not paying is the limited skill cap something worth paying to upgrade since you will get killed in PVP if you are not paying . Even the advanced player could live with the trial primary skill cap if they want to skip a few months if they do not loose all their secondaries, as it is not hard to level up from 600 to 1100 (just drain an easy to level secondary like jumping for athletics primary to reskill back up)

I couldnt agreed more, it would be more freedom for new players, but otherhand they may make secondary or third accounts to craft things while using the main account. Not sure if they will allow it, but i would vote against it. Since the game is not completed yet anyway and i know if they dont get much money or enough subs to keep them happy, they may not put much efforts into the project.

They (SV) can however make trial accounts not be able to use the postal and trade functions to avoid this issues and keep the F2P open for new players til they get a hang of this by finding friends and guilds they are happy with then pretty much they will sub.

[deathshroud]

i would go with a, buy the game and you can play a trial forever (limited to trial stats) without subbing. But free trials forever without even buying the game i dont agree with.

Esentially if you buy the game you could play MO without a subscription but limited to 1 trial account that doesnt run out.

[Mycke]

I dont agree with trial forever...

The world could not handle so many accounts running around and guilds would just use all these extra free never ending accounts for various nefarious means.

If people dont want to pay then they dont want to play, two weeks is plenty of time to see if you like the game or not.

Dont want to see hundreds of worthless half built toons filling up the world to no ends.

[serith78]

All good ideas except for #5 the murder penalty. IMO having a penalty for each murder would ruin the game....and turn combat into a mess of nakeds trying to jump in front of sword swings. Nevermind how do you deal with the following situations without running up a huge amount of murdercounts:

- Masses of naked unguilded blues running boulders.
- Trying to hold down any resource or area whatsoever when competing guilds trying to harvest it only need to keep respawning and sending in naked hunters or miners.
- Flagging system griefers.


At best, trying to accomodate these situations would result in the creation of a flagging system with even more exploitable loopholes then it already has. And the penalty for players who get victimized by flag exploiters would be game ruining. I prefer no flagging at all but as a comprimise EVE probably has the best model - safer zone with flagging and a higher risk zone where all the good stuff is.

I don't want to see PVP as a playing style turned into an annoying mess for the sake of "save the newbies" especially when the measures being taken won't really save newbies at all. Overall from what I've seen players exploiting the flagging system kill way more newbies then reds do.

IMO a far more realistic solution is starting newbies off with the skills to fight back instead of spawning them into the world as defenseless walking targets. Starting out with a playable character and being able to jump into play quickly also drastically increases the newbie retention rate. As things are now, newbies can't really do anything and getting them up to a level where they can is a pretty significant resource drain for the guilds that take them in.

[yarnevk]

But SV had pre-built spawn classes and took it out - what makes you think they would do it again?

[serith78]

Originally Posted by yarnevk

But SV had pre-built spawn classes and took it out - what makes you think they would do it again?

Simply put IMO common sense, this game is losing way too many potential customers due to the "defenseless newbie" stage of play. It's a very small part of the overall play experience that causes a disproportionate amount of people to leave the game. Veterans know how to get out of this stage quickly, newbies either have no idea or they read the forums and go "wtf is up with blocking pigs and chopping wood". I've had a few potential players quit at this stage even though they knew it was a short one. Nevermind how saying the game is based so much on player skill then throwing players into the world unable to defend themselves really sends the wrong message.

[bbihah]

Seeing the etherworld and resurrection having steeper penalty for "mass murderers" could be a nice way to balance things out.

[HrdkrH4x0r]

Originally Posted by deathshroud

not everyone wants the skinning skill, i would take skinning in the field but chances are its harder to implement than vendors buying the carcass directly

Also you also need lores to get much of anything out of skinning just like butchering. Selling carcasses to vendors, agreed. Allowing npc vendors to resell everything theyve brought for the next 48 hours, also essential to the economy.

Originally Posted by deathshroud

3. Training dummies, training dummies act in the same way as a tree in terms of raising your stats, simply walk up to one with a sword drawn and hit use key and you will begin to flail on the training dummy increasing basic combat skills and atributes. Combat skills will only raise so far but atributes can be maxed upon a training dummy.

Be careful here, this could easily be AFKed, especially so when you consider that all it requires is one hit of the F key. WoW much? Maybe what would make this interesting is a dummy that kind of acts like a punching bag in that it moves around and reacts to your swings. Whenever you actually make contact with its hitbox you gain maybe a 1/5th of one level in the weapon skill early on, gradually decreasing to 1/10th of a level, 1/20th of a level, and finally 1/30th of a level, at which point you'll reach the skill cap from hitting the dummy (60?). The skill gains don't have to be exactly as I've said, though they should be slow enough to not make it too easy but fast enough to keep the player interested when used in sessions (not all at once).
A message will pop up as it does in taming saying "You don't gain any skill from hitting this dummy" when you cap your skill, btw. Skills like combat movement and athletics will raise by themselves as they normally do.

[bbihah]

I think he was thinking of a smaller maximum cap for hitting the dummy.(40~?)
Id rather have it so you actually need to swing at the dummy but activating it will make it so as long as your near it you can not hit anything else but the dummy ( prevents griefers from trying to get in the way of a new player learning swing arcs and handle hit spots)

[deathshroud]

Originally Posted by HrdkrH4x0r

Also you also need lores to get much of anything out of skinning just like butchering. Selling carcasses to vendors, agreed. Allowing npc vendors to resell everything theyve brought for the next 48 hours, also essential to the economy.

Be careful here, this could easily be AFKed, especially so when you consider that all it requires is one hit of the F key. WoW much? Maybe what would make this interesting is a dummy that kind of acts like a punching bag in that it moves around and reacts to your swings. Whenever you actually make contact with its hitbox you gain maybe a 1/5th of one level in the weapon skill early on, gradually decreasing to 1/10th of a level, 1/20th of a level, and finally 1/30th of a level, at which point you'll reach the skill cap from hitting the dummy (60?). The skill gains don't have to be exactly as I've said, though they should be slow enough to not make it too easy but fast enough to keep the player interested when used in sessions (not all at once).
A message will pop up as it does in taming saying "You don't gain any skill from hitting this dummy" when you cap your skill, btw. Skills like combat movement and athletics will raise by themselves as they normally do.

it could be afked like chopping wood can be afked, the dummies would obviously be outside guardzones.
i went with activating the dummy because of griefing and also who wants to stand next to a dummy pressing attack every few seconds. This way it raises auto like chopping wood. But your raising skills you actually want to use. i would have it cap the skills at like 50, they wont train any higher but you canuse the dummy to slowly raise atributes much like chopping wood.

the added penalty for murdering blues would be an additional 1% statloss for every murder over 5 statloss counts, so if you have 10 statloss conuts you would take 15% statloss, this goes up to a maximum of 90% statloss. However once the murderer dies his statloss count is reset to 5 each time. This now means that the naked crafter outside fab gatyhering wood is going to give the murderer an additional 1% statloss if he kills him. Is it worth it?

[princereaper]

Henrik said that gamma hacking will be fixed by making sure that there will be no data to send or something like that.

Originally Posted by Henrik Nystrom

We are going to lower night time I bit as it look now, and we are going to make nights more like "Skyrim" nights, so you dont have to touch gamma, and a small part pitch black when the moon clouds etc allows for it.

This is not a very quick change because it alters everything in our seasons night mooncyles, wind weather etc...

So in other words, the gama "cheat" is removed due to you would not need to change gamma during the normal "night" times, and when its pitch black, gamma changes doesnt help since there is no data to display due to pitch black.

Also the UI is getting completely replaced in Awakening with flash GUI if you didn't notice lol.

New User Interface

The entire graphical user interface for Mortal Online has been recreated from scratch using Scaleform technology. Gone are the days of inconsistency and awkward management; The Awakening brings Mortal Online's user interface to a AAA level, offering smooth and intuitive functions.
The introduction of this system not only means every bulky part of the existing UI will be replaced with a more advanced interface, but also allows more systems which will be live in The Awakening, such as:

• Storage Containers and Bags
  When space is becoming an issue, you can now organize items within bags of varying sizes.
• Player-Written Books and Notes
  Create your own literary masterpieces using ink and paper. Write simple notes or entire books to sell or trade with other players. This system is designed to tie in with Dawn's mail features to allow you to send real, tangible messages to other players.
• Noteboards
  Attach your notes to a noteboard, often found within cities and towns. Leave messages for other players to offer work, find resources and countless other uses.
• Lockpicking
  Sometimes desire is greater than patience; use lockpicking (mini-game), where both character and player skill come into play, to open locks without a key.

[deathshroud]

he said they would brighten up dark nights to a similar level as skyrim. Was in the MO pulse interview thing. Mentioned nothing of a fix for dark nights that would keep the darkness.

[Artorius]

I don't know honestly, I mean, when you know what to do, it's extremely easy to get started in MO... Maybe we need to better inform the new players? More infos on character creation, what each attribute is good for (str for damage, heavy weapons, etc.), what each race is good for, suggestions on what to do to get started once your character is created (to level up attributes, how to get new skills, how to get some money...) and more importantly, to suggest them to join a guild!

I agree to make nights playable without changing gamma (like other MMOs), training dummy, carcasses that can be sold to vendor for a much lower price than you would get if sold to a player and butchered with maxed skill. If vets would have access to newbie channel, it would become the world chat with tons of trolling. I'm not sure I want world chat. I know there's IRC but only a small portion of the player base use it. With world chat, forget local communities and say hello to MO globalisation. There would be a fight in the jungle and everyone would know it instantly. The local vision of MO is one of the core feature of the game just like first person view only, action real time combat, full loot, full pvp, no long range instant transport, etc. and I would really like it to stay that way.

With local auction houses that are coming for Awakening, the noticeboards and letters, if they are designed properly, it will also help new players a LOT as there will surely be butchers/crafters advertising their services on noticeboards so you can mail them your carcasses with coin on delivery option (ya know you can do that right?), order weapons, buy stuff on the AH with your hard earned coins from the few carcasses of pigs you sold, etc.

I really think the Awakening expansion have the potential to make MO take off for real as long as it's not totally broken and maybe with some advertisement. While remaining a hardcore game, it will now also cater to a wider audience for roleplay, pve and make it easier for new players to get started.

[Traveller_]

Skill tree: I am not sure I would want the "unknowns" to be shown at all. It would be a clear giveaway that some skills having to do with something have yet to be uncovered. Imagine how people would react when they suddenly find an "unknown" under petrology tree. They would immediatley know that a new mineral has been introduced in the game (as was the case of cerulite).

Coin making mobs: Once trade brokers are in game it's likely that money won't be generated from mobs anymore. In other words I expect that the NPC vendors will be seriously ridimensioned, and the price of hunting materials will be decided by the market. It still is unknown however what kind of gold faucet the devs might in mind.

Night time: Not sure I approve of this, but torches should receive much love...

[HrdkrH4x0r]

@Artorius For the Help Channel the GMs and Mods could draft a big team of (unguilded if possible) veterans who have access to the help channel. One mod will be assigned to it to prevent any political talk (and of course only one vet per guild in the help channel). The team could be flexible and change on a week to week basis.

[yarnevk]

Originally Posted by Traveller_

but torches should receive much love...

They are indeed useless they barely light up around your feet, you certainly cannot see the path ahead of you.

[ronnzx]

Originally Posted by deathshroud

...
4. Help channel, the fledgling help channel is a nice touch for newbies to get help during play. However i beleive that veteran players should have the chance of gaining access to the help channel on a char so that they can provide useful help to noobs. Currently the gms are to busy and the only people present in the channel are newbs and newbs cant really help other newbs effectively.
..

Agree to all of your points except 4.

I started a new account a month ago and have to say the GMs are doing a good job.
They answerd all the questions. Even the annoying ones (Capslock, Shittalking) got Tips how to do something better.

Besides that GMs are still looking for help as far as I know. (was mentioned in MortalPulse)

[Dsn]

Originally Posted by ronnzx

Agree to all of your points except 4.

I started a new account a month ago and have to say the GMs are doing a good job.
They answerd all the questions. Even the annoying ones (Capslock, Shittalking) got Tips how to do something better.

Besides that GMs are still looking for help as far as I know. (was mentioned in MortalPulse)

one thing they need to increase the yellow flag time to 20 hours and that it goes to all chars.

[Shadowmist]

Originally Posted by deathshroud

5. murder penalty, the murder penalty just isnt harsh enoguh for red players, their needs to be some form of discouragment for killing each individual player as opposed to only the first 5.

THIS!!!!!!!!!


Screw the other points as long as this one get's in. Call me whatever you want, but discouraging players from just killing on sight without reason is one of the most important changes required to keep new players, especially solo players.

Like OP mentioned, why would anyone care about their MC after the first 5?

RPK will always (and should always) exist in MO, but it should still be continuously punished no matter if you have 6 or 600 MC's.


I was attacked once and managed to get the attacker to stop attacking me. I told him I had gold on me as well as more in my bank that I would give him if he let me live.....

You can imagine the outcome yourselves.


What bothered me wasn't the fact that I lost stuff, it was that there was absolutely no way to reason with him and I could offer him absolutely nothing. He just killed me to "browse my stuff" and out of boredom.

If a zerg approaches me in an open field and tells me to give them my stuff or die, I would gladly hand it over, as would many newbs.

[ronnzx]

Originally Posted by Dsn

one thing they need to increase the yellow flag time to 20 hours and that it goes to all chars.

agree. 8 hours isn't enough

[Paratus]

Originally Posted by deathshroud

not everyone wants the skinning skill, i would take skinning in the field but chances are its harder to implement than vendors buying the carcass directly

Skinning is used a little differently in Awakening. It's mostly a simple UI change, but when you learn extraction you'll now see an actual skinning ability which can be used anywhere, just like extraction now. The usability is the same, it just makes more sense for newbies.

Originally Posted by deathshroud

1. The new skill ui needs to be much clearer and thought out over the current one. Its way to confusing for new players to understand exactly what they are supposed to be doing when it comes to skills and what they need to train. I propose that the skill tree has all skills listed in it but those untrained are obviously greyed out. Skills which are rare show up as unknown until they are learnt to keep their mystery. This way new palyers can see the next skill in the tree even if they dont have it trained. I also suggest some quick tool tips on the skill window. Clicking one will highlight the basic skills that relate to its name. For example clicking the warrior tip will highlight skills like combat movement, combat manouvering etc. Giving a rough guide of what sort of skill the new player should train in order to succeed at his chosen proffesion.

...

6. brighten up the night time, this was talked about by henrik that the nights would indeed be brightened up and i think the perfect time to do this is with the awakening expansion.

The skill window UI in Awakening functions on a tree, much like you described. The tree allows you to expand/collapse nodes with their subskills, highlights based on primary and secondary and so on. We agree that a tree view is the best way to go with MO's parent/child skill index.

As for the night time, I'm pretty sure that'll be seen with Awakening too. There will still be the odd moonless night, but on average they'll be just bright enough that you won't get an advantage by gamma adjustments. Caves and other areas will of course stay as dark as they are.

[HrdkrH4x0r]

Fix for the light bug when entering/exiting a cave?

Thanks for the update Paratus.

[ksungjune]

you guys dont even recognize what the problem is with MO.

[HrdkrH4x0r]

[deathshroud]

Originally Posted by HrdkrH4x0r

Fix for the light bug when entering/exiting a cave?

Thanks for the update Paratus.

this pretty much.

ksungjune- please enlighten us?

[yarnevk]

Originally Posted by Paratus

The skill window UI in Awakening functions on a tree, much like you described. The tree allows you to expand/collapse nodes with their subskills, highlights based on primary and secondary and so on. We agree that a tree view is the best way to go with MO's parent/child skill index.

Well if we are getting what we wanted then we just have to ask for more!

A shortcut button that expands to every primary (or every secondary) that points have been spent. This will be very useful in managing character in game, rather than having to open and close every tree hunting for points to lose when you are capped, or finding those secondaries you still need to train on.

Once we have that, then adding cut/paste selections to html/txt/rtf will make it very useful for sharing character builds.

[skn]

1 - Agree
2 - Agree
3 - Agree
4 - Agree
5 - Agree
6 - Disagree, rather then brithening up the night time, make light more usefull with bigger radius of light and torches, making them genreally more usefull then they already are.

[deathshroud]

well they already announced they would brighten it up. I would love to have dark nights were people cant gamma cheat it and the torches were useful but it isnt possible outside of a singleplayer game.

[Bobzer77]

Originally Posted by skn

1 - Agree
2 - Agree
3 - Agree
4 - Agree
5 - Agree
6 - Disagree, rather then brithening up the night time, make light more usefull with bigger radius of light and torches, making them genreally more usefull then they already are.

Even if torches were more useful why would I bother when I can still set my gamma up?