Newcomers Brain Storm

1st Official Post
    • Official Post

    Hello,


    We are planning Newcomers Rework patch this year that would make it easier for new players to dive into Arcadia.


    Current ideas are:

    • Guild Recruitment board where you can add your offer as guild or player.
    • Adding interactive tutorial tips during gameplay connected to Wiki.
    • Tutorial instance that explains combat mechanics.
    • Better starting tutorial zone.
    • Newsletters.
    • Referral system for both invited and inviter.
    • Daily rewards for newbies.
    • Additional collectible activities on all zones with rewards.
    • Information about new possibilities while reaching new level.
    • Reworked Honor party system.
    • Gear Score requirement/recommendation/warning for custom content to ensure new players know where to go.
    • List with suggested content (level/Gear Score).
    • Reducing exp debt for newbies.
    • Adjustments to exp rate to ensure players have enough time to get know game mechanics.
    • Reworked party finding board.
    • Good mount for 3/7 days.

    We would like to get also your opinions on what else would be good. Or which ideas could be bad.


    I will reward every constructive post with cookie reaction &)



    Would you like to participate and give your opinion but it's not your thing to do so in the forums thread? Click to use the Survey and send us your feedback!


    Greetings

    Hello, I really like in general the idea of your Newcomers rework and your current ideas are very good. :thumbup:


    Maybe I can add some interesting points.


    First:


    How about a Newbie Guild or at least a Newbie-Channel for everyone who is new in the game. Something where new players can exchange "beginner" questions and answers about quests/mechanics or things which are in the tutorials not listed with another players who maybe made the one or other experience before and help each other. If someone is a bit more experienced and ready to leave the Guild/channel it is up to him. Could imagine such thing would be useful and strength the newbies among themselves.


    Second:


    Don't know if you already thought about my next idea in this point:

    • Information about new possibilities while reaching new level.

    Nevertheless it would be surely nice for new players to have something similar to a structured guide until the point they know the most important game mechanics and how they can continue in the following. I am currently not sure when a player reached this point or whether at all it is possible to reach this point for a newcomer without help of experienced players. There are simply to much game mechanics^^. Additionally I think it is important to find a way with a guide which includes help for all "types" of players. I mean, not everyone want or can play 24/7 this game, so therefore it would be cool, no matter if a newbie plays the game for fun, the mid game or end game strives for, all information for everyone shpuld be included. Don't know how your plans are so far with instant levelling to Level 80. But I would delete it with the newcomers rework, because firstly the exp rates are very high and you also can level up with quests or farm high level mobs in the future. And not to forget the experience modificator xD. There are enough possiblities to reach max level or reach it as slow as in Runes of Magic. I'm sure as well that if I hadn't played Runes of Magic for several years before and gotten help from other experienced players as a newbie, I would have stopped playing immediately. So I see help e.g. through a guide as a necessary point for the newcomers rework.


    For example create a To-Do-List as a guide for all players and leaves it to them to decide whether or not to use it. So not only newbies can benefit of this guide but everyone. I mean the game offers thousands of possibilities to improve the own character. Even for endgame players such a list would be really cool.


    Here is a template of what such a to-do-list could look like:


    ⬜Level 1: Discover the tutorial zone and and get to know the first mechanics of the game.

    ⬜.... (if done, green tick in the white square :D)

    ⬜....

    ⬜Level 20: Go to "XYZ" and learn a secondary class. "XYZ" will explain you the unique dual class system.

    ⬜Level 105: Level up your Gun to level 285. You already reached 264/285.


    This is just a simple example which needs more informations and details for beginners but I think players can keep an eye on what they have to do or can continue.



    Next:

    • Tutorial instance that explains combat mechanics.

    I think this is one of the most important things to reconsider. For me this point also includes skill book, skills, item set skills, title skills, cooldowns, explanations about skills with global cooldown or not and what I all forgot to mention. In my opinion the most players here play the game because of pve and perhaps pvp. I am also aware that with the new housing system and in the future crafting a new part of role play gets implemented and such players must not be disregarded. But almost all here works to use the combat mechanics for a reward and the pve system just makes a lot of fun. So you can add hints to skills for newbies how to use them and if they discovered the dual class system + item set skills maybe it is then possible to develop guides for classes to give the players a brief insight into how to play this class and so on. However, this is only possible within the framework of class balancing and class changes.

    Since I play here I don't know anyone who started playing as a tank, because playing tank correctly is very hard. And this is also valid for endgame players so what should new players tell you. Just check death rates in IDK or Dark Core. Not all deaths are on the tank of course, but it is within the large realm of possibility that the tank will save the group from dying. And it is certainly not in the interest of a newbie if he has chosen as a class "tank", then he certainly does not want to be accused by the group all the time of killing the raid, if doing anything wrong. That is why instructions and practicing at a place for classes could be useful for newcomers as well imo.


    Gameplay experience:


    I think almost all who play here, are using addons. And yes in the launcher some of them are provided for everyone, but as a newbie the first dedication is not just any helpful addons that are important for gameplay, but play on the game. Perhaps the DEV team can consult which addons are important for newcomers and provide them as utilities for everyone. This definitely benefits the gaming experience. In the past, TooltipIDs, WoWmap and (Yacit <-- card addon) have already been implemented, which brings advantages for all players.

    My experience also tells me that in order to get ahead in this game, you either invest a lot of time or money. Of course, one must not forget that CoA is a free-to-play MMORPG. Nevertheless, I would like it if newbies are rewarded for success. On the one hand, these could be item shop items, gold or diamonds, etc.

    I think that especially newcomers earn diamonds poorly at the beginning and are forced to invest if they want to be accepted into a guild or become better. A solution to this problem would also have to be found.


    So, these are my first ideas and impressions, hopefully some useful ones. More will surely follow.


    Greetings

    Great ideas so far that show lots of potential for new players. One idea briefly mentioned by Ryzek above was to entirely remove the level 80 boost. I wouldn't remove it entirely but simply make it harder to achieve for new people, moving the npc into for ex. Varanas somewhere where only returning players would know about it.


    Personally I would like to see players have a reason to stick around, atm once you reach max level there is little information on what exactly to do on the server, so some tips/guides on best way to get started would be most beneficial to new players as there were so many changes implemented over the years that even as returning player it's hard to know where to start, let alone as an entirely fresh player to the game.


    Creating some quest series through the newbie pet or even in a fresh new UI like card/housing would be a great way to show players the game at the start, directing them into correct areas or simply teaching them mechanics of the game that were maybe too advanced for showing players in the tutorial, as there is many cool things you can do with your character in this game the higher your level gets.

    Hey ,


    Firstly maybe it is worth to think about a Link to this Thread ingame in a Scroll Banner or even Link from mainpage /launcher . My guess is most newbies dont know about forum or how to handle it yet. And that newbies respond in this thread about what they would wish to have etc is the most important.


    From what i remember from my Starting Time , Quests in general where pretty boring and came down to either Kill X Mobs, Harvest X ressource or deliver that to NPC X. Talaghan Questline is really good and i would wish for this in all Zones , but i guess that is a shitload of Work.


    I would also not remove the lvl 80 Boost as a good portion of new players come from other RoM servers and have probably quested low lvl contend 20 times and are bored of it.

    A rework to the Starting tutorial is probably more then overdue , also from the First Tutorial Quests in Logar e.g Visit the Housemaid , Visit the AH etc can be made more uptodate and in-depth.

    Also wat Lorise was saying about what to do once you reach Max Level would be awesome e.g where Custom Content starts , Hint about Shell Gear ( its op for newbies), daily stuff , Some sort of a Guildboard.

    About mechanical stuff like how skills work, non gcd´s stuff i would not go into detail that much , finding such things out is part of the experience i guess.


    Also automatically Placing new Players into a Custom Chat channel would be awesome , with a Hint at the Start like "Hey we see you are new Here , we placed you in a Chat Channel for newbies where you can Ask questions etc" , where also maybe some veteran players can be inside to answer questions/ help the Players.

    Another Option would be a Godfather/Godparent system , where for example in Logar or varanas is a big "guildboard" like Placed somewhere where veteran players can "advertise" themself and newbies can send a request to them to become their "apprentice" and have a Person they can ask for help in any way.



    Greetings

    If you identify a UFO as a UFO , then it becomes an FO. Unless it has landed , then it is simply an -> O

    Cookie 5 Like 2

    I think the most frustrating thing for new players when they reach max level is the impossibility of farming diamonds. Yes, I've seen a few guides but atm minigames, cards etc aren't a good source. Tiers market is a disaster, only the most hard core farmers could get any decent profit with hell lot of patience. Exactly the opposite of what a beginner needs.

    At the end the best way to keep players in the game is if they can afford to buy little things so their experience is more pleasant.


    For example, adding an Item Shop currency (like diamonds) so they can buy things there. Add this currency to the map quests as reward. Attach IP, MAC etc so old players don't create alts (like rofl cores).

    They would slowly do quests and get familiar with the trillions of things in item shop.


    Regards.

    Copy leveling experience of gw2, majority of mmorpg players thinks this is the best and most fun leveling experience atm.

    For example - in starting human zone, every 15min there is an event you have to kill 50x fungus, 50x wolfs to spawn main boss. After an event you get exp to level up from 1-5lvl and so on. With this system you also show new players how the endgame will look. Also give them some special currency from this events to buy some item shop stuff like madox mentioned.


    A must thing that is currently missing is also WORKING GROUP FINDER. spending 100x megaphones to form a raid is outrageous.

    This would also help new players to form parties for zone events.

    Example - look at ffxiv system and copy it


    Make it so pvp arenas give exp orbs to level up just like in pve.


    Make some kind of catch up system. Especially for pets/cenedrils. You cant expect ppl to play 1 year just to catch up to old players, they lose interest in the process and leave the game.


    To be honest, its going to be hard to get new players in such an old and outdated game.

    If you have the legal rights for this game, just rerelease the game at some point, this would bring massive amount of players into the game.

    Quote from Melov

    For example - in starting human zone, every 15min there is an event you have to kill 50x fungus, 50x wolfs to spawn main boss. After an event you get exp to level up from 1-5lvl and so on. With this system you also show new players how the endgame will look. Also give them some special currency from this events to buy some item shop stuff like madox mentioned.

    Interesting Idea , i like it . Only problem i see , there are like 44 Zones below Max level and making events for each zone for newplayers prob wont work as there will be just not enough players , unless it will get some scaling that you can also solo it or even veteran players can help out without straight up oneshotting the event boss/mobs.

    If you identify a UFO as a UFO , then it becomes an FO. Unless it has landed , then it is simply an -> O

    Quote

    How about a Newbie Guild or at least a Newbie-Channel for everyone who is new in the game. Something where new players can exchange "beginner" questions and answers about quests/mechanics or things which are in the tutorials not listed with another players who maybe made the one or other experience before and help each other. If someone is a bit more experienced and ready to leave the Guild/channel it is up to him. Could imagine such thing would be useful and strength the newbies among themselves.

    I have this here if anyone is interested. Just looking for more people to help Me run it, have some in guild now. Donations to improve Castle/Guild accepted.


    The full thread link: New Guild - Welcome - Guild Recruitments - Chronicles of Arcadia Forum

    "Rework"


    Sure, why not?


    • Better starting tutorial zone - Interesting but you'll need to elaborate more on this.
    • Adjustments to exp rate - lol, lmao even. Good luck with that, I even made a thread telling you this won't work.
    • Reducing exp debt for newbies - I'll do you better : abolish this system entirely. For all players.
    • Good mount for 3/7 days - It would be better to just add a merchant that sells permanent mounts for gold. It doesn't have to be anything crazy, just regular horses will do.
    • Daily rewards for newbies - And at what point do they stop becoming newbies? Bad idea.

    Everything else sounds fine, if only for fluff and I agree with what anbubg and madox said.

    Also these doesn't really address why new players aren't coming and to be honest, most who do come are probably veterans of RoM anyway.


    There are things such as the weapon leveling which should just be rid off by this point and the levelling experience, especially for 1-60, is atrocious.


    As for level boost, I'm more mixed about that one. Personally I'd increase the boost to 90 and, this might sound unpopular, let players reclaim the boosted gear as many times as they want as long as they are lvl 90 with that class.

    Nerf the gears if you must, but this could ease gearing issues especially if they want to try different classes.


    There are many other things that needs to be reworked or needing an overhaul. I'm not saying we should dumb down the game, but RoM is old and frankly it's not very newbie friendly. This goes for both retail and Arcadia

    What about a tutorial ini that allows you to pick a classcombination of choice and lvl is adjusted to 80/80. You will also have all elite for that class inside this custom ini. Upon entering it asks if you want solo or 6ppl version. Only starter gear is allowed.


    This allows people to test certain tank, heal and dps and allow beginner to develop a deeper understanding of the game.


    In this custom ini you or the group decides wich boss to spawn for which you want to practise.

    Quote from Melov

    Copy leveling experience of gw2, majority of mmorpg players thinks this is the best and most fun leveling experience atm.

    For example - in starting human zone, every 15min there is an event you have to kill 50x fungus, 50x wolfs to spawn main boss. After an event you get exp to level up from 1-5lvl and so on. With this system you also show new players how the endgame will look. Also give them some special currency from this events to buy some item shop stuff like madox mentioned.

    Gw2 leveling mostly works really well largely because of the fact that zones lower than your character level adjusts the player level to match the zone. Not sure these open world events work so well in rom when every mob is 1 shot by any level 105 player that comes by.

    I propose to make profiles of the players who are supposed to be attracted:


    - focused on the highest achievements;


    - collector (of cards, titles, costumes);


    - crafter;


    - casual player.


    For each profile, you need to develop a roadmap for getting involved in the game.


    The most valuable player for the game is focused on the highest achievements. But the equipment of such a player is very expensive. If it is collected by a collective (guild), the task will be more feasible. But the guild has no guarantee that the player, having received equipment from it, will not leave.


    Therefore, I propose to implement the binding of items to the guild. These are:


    - equipment;


    - potions;


    - mounts;


    - backpack expanders;


    - mobile auction house;


    - mobile mailbox.


    Guild costumes are needed to equip players and mounts.


    The best guilds should have access to an airship and quests with its participation.


    To attract casual players, I suggest randomly giving additional rewards for completing low-level quests. Rewards should be given to characters close in level to the quest level.


    I also propose to improve the functionality of the game in general:


    - create a section as for costumes at the auction house. Now the conjuncture on the costumes is opaque;


    - in the player's house, provide for the possibility of creating a menagerie. Mobs can be placed in the menagerie. Mobs need to be sold in the item shop;


    - provide the ability to search for all NPCs;


    - provide the ability to search for a point by coordinates. Put a coordinate grid on the maps of the regions.


    I propose to improve the infrastructure of the game:


    - specials announcements in the item shop;


    - filling out and maintaining up-to-date Wiki. There should be a section on costumes;


    - need a practical guide to improve monster cards. So that it is clear how to get the best characteristics of the card;


    - need to publish the game's quest tree.


    I also suggest that technical work be carried out at a certain time. Whenever possible.

    Quote from Lorise
    Quote from Melov

    Copy leveling experience of gw2, majority of mmorpg players thinks this is the best and most fun leveling experience atm.

    For example - in starting human zone, every 15min there is an event you have to kill 50x fungus, 50x wolfs to spawn main boss. After an event you get exp to level up from 1-5lvl and so on. With this system you also show new players how the endgame will look. Also give them some special currency from this events to buy some item shop stuff like madox mentioned.

    Gw2 leveling mostly works really well largely because of the fact that zones lower than your character level adjusts the player level to match the zone. Not sure these open world events work so well in rom when every mob is 1 shot by any level 105 player that comes by.

    If its too hard to adjust zones they could rework the festivals, add zones for leveling etc. There is alot of options to make a better leveling experience. Take a look at how many ppl are doing festivals, not many i would say. people are mostly forced to do it for zodiac/draco pets but outside that festivals are outdated and most of ppl dont like to do them.

    The most basic problem for beginners is that they don't understand what to do on the server. They took level 80 from an NPC, while they don't even know half of their skills and abilities.

    It is also very difficult for beginners to get the game currency "dias". This is what scares most players away.

    Therefore, I suggest:

    -Create a zone where any new player can try out all classes and all their skills and skill sets.

    -Quest where there will be requirements for the correct use of the skill

    -Make a small reward for a successful workout


    Sorry for my translation. :rolleyes:

    Im not sure why everyone seems to want everything handed to them as to think that will solve people being able to play the game well when it wont.


    You can already get level 80 basically instantly and as stated elsewhere people dont even know how to play the new level 80 class they just got. Now some are proposing both/all classes be 80 so that people can choose which class they want to play?


    Starting from 80 instantly on one class is enough to completely max all the skills which You want to use (and even some have TP left over in some cases) and includes the "starter" gear which is better gear in most cases than anything You can get playing from 1-80 manually and doing just the quest.


    Really the only case scenario which anything will improve the game play is simply just getting players educated about how the game functions and why/how certain gear/stones/stats/items etc function and learning how to do bosses which drop the gear/stones/stats/items etc that people need/want and what to do with the gear/stones/stats/items etc afterwards.


    You can have more then one character on Your account anyways so making it possible for 1 character to be all classes/races/etc at the same time doesnt make any sense to Me. Each race has its own starting area, its own story, its own reason to be in the fight to begin with etc.


    So I dont understand why does everyone want to smash everything into 1 "Master Build" and why should it be just handed to them? You dont get much enjoyment from the game like that in my opinion.


    - Regards

    Greetings, as a new player myself - or returning player who played the original Runes of Magic back in ~2005 - i got the following ideas/opinions/suggestions/comments.....

    Reducing exp debt for newbies.
    - get rid of the exp debt entirely. It adds nothing but frustration and annoyance to the game, if you must keep it in the game, i would change it in a way like it works in Darksouls, once you die, you got exp debt but you can get rid of it completely by touching your gravestone, like you can recover souls in the soulslike games.


    The other points i am sure how well they will actually benefit new players.
    I would change the low level zones, espacially with the modified exp, you can breeze through them and get a lot of levels in a few hours, but its also super long if you also want to complete all the quests to get the achievements.
    I would take a look at the quests and simplify the questing experience, you got some really annoying quests, eg in Logar you got some annyoing fetch quests where you have to travel across the map several times. Or the low drop rate quests around varanas, like the 15 pages of the legends of taborea.


    I would also consider rebalancing some of the low level group quests, as you don't have many people in that area, sure you can simply switch to your free level 80 class and oneshot them, but you could also rebalance these mobs, in a way they are killable solo on level 15 (or the corresponding level in that zone). This would also be against the MMORPG idea, but i doubt you got more than one premade group a year who go into the Logar instances and take on the elites and bosses in the classic tank/heal/dps group composition, i would guess 99% of players will call a friend or wait till they levelep up enough to oneshot them and get the quest done asap.


    I would adress Buffs as well, why are my own buffs which only buff myself, limited to 10~15minutes. If you can't make them a passive like many others, just increase the duration to an hour or more. eg. Rouges got stuff like "Dagger Mastery" a passive, conviently active all the time, but Mages "Energy Influx" has to be clicked every 900secs, but this could also be a passive as it only affects my own character (i haven't checked if there is an elite skill with a class combo, which can apply it to the party, but in this special cases the base skill could still be a passive and only be changed when the eliteskill is learned)


    I would also suggest your future eliteskills to be displayed in the skills tab, so can check right from the start which skills you will learn at certain levels. You can already check on the eliteskills, when speaking to the eliteskill masters, but its troublesome and i doubt someone who never played this game (or the original Runes of Magic) will know this and talk to the eliteskill guy.


    Ok so I can address/comment on some of this post because I am Cyrus (the total noob that bought You the flying rune disk mount and have also bought things for other players that I felt deserved something for helping me or other players.) I played "Vanilla" ROM for awhile and I quit that not because I didnt like it but because of the cost. I decided to give a try again and found that all my stuff was gone and I used to buy diamonds using Zeevex which I cant find anywhere locally so I started playing this game. I also play other RPG's and other types of Games so I wouldnt say I am a total noob; rather, I need time to adjust to a different game which is why I ask certain questions people dont always understand why I am asking. Internally in my mind I am still processing/comparing how this game works/compares to ROM because if some strategies/options/techniques have carried over then I am that much further into understanding what I need to do. Also internally I am processing where the split occurred and what has changed in each versions since the split etc.


    Furthermore; on ROM; possibly because of the cost, I found the players are too aggressive towards each other and it became less about working together to do bosses and achieve goals and more about grieving people because they didnt have or werent capable of achieving enough diamonds to buy the gear/stats etc for bosses. Then even if someone did spend the real cash for diamonds getting the gear that was needed from other players without getting ripped off somehow was again a real issue, and I guess finally let's pretend somehow a player played ROM or COA and didnt buy diamonds at all ever, they can still accomplish everything the diamond buyers could but it would take much more time and it would be a horrible grinding experience. You wouldnt really enjoy the game anyways at that point.


    So in my opinion; obviously, the game needs end game content for veterans as a priority but the game also needs its veterans to do what Zapek did and reach out to new players of COA and make sure they know how the game is played so that they too can reach end game and reach out to new players and keep the cycle going.


    I think Zapek does bring some good points; even without the sarcasm, but it does really narrow down to this ....


    Let Me repeat ........


    Developers - Keep working on endgame and engine/ui improvements for Your veteran players to make them happy.

    Veteran Players - Keep teaching and helping new players get to where You are so that everyone can enjoy the Dev's work.


    - That's my opinion anyways :)