OK, background first: I'm a returning player (a few weeks now) and I brought 2 new people here (Partner(P), who has never played an MMO, a 10 year-old child (C), who wanted to try something different than Roblox with friends). I've removed gender best I can in this post.
P and I continue to play. C gave up citing the game as slow, boring, and difficult despite my best efforts. C said C isn't going to recommend the game to friends. I asked C to try again another day before C says anything to them, or bring a friend over and play together under my help.
I'm no expert in the game, but I enjoy it in my own way. P had a lot of questions when starting and was overwhelmed: how do I kill the spider in the tutorial when there are no skills, what do you mean I can level up to 91 instantly, what class(es) can I have and what do they mean, what weapons/armour do they use, which piece of gear is better as P quested, and so on. I spent a lot of time tutoring, but my knowledge is limited.
With that out of the way, here's what the three of us came up with.
TOP THREE ISSUES
1. Knowledge of the game.
P said without me, the game would've been abandoned. I suggested whether an instant guild is a good idea, where other people could help. P said I'm the primary source, but without me, other people may need human help or just give up and play something else. P also said the game would be lonely without someone else. I think P's right. It's why I stopped playing a while ago. C didn't care about a guild, admitting the struggle to do simple things was too much. P was interested about free castle buffs to help quest. I'd forgotten about that as it's been so long, and agree with P.
2. Learning the game
P also had issues with tutorials as some need an action for it to pop up, eg, pressing "C" for the character screen. P didn't know to press "C" to get that tutorial - chicken and egg, so it seems. I checked P's settings yesterday and all the tutorials were turned off. P wasn't aware! P said they're wordy. I defended them although I see P's point. So, difficult to comment on tutorials as I don't know what the heck P did. Perhaps in itself, there's a lesson. (Honestly, P really needs to click around more, right, but P is a newbie to MMO).
3. Empty world
We're Australian in an odd time zone to the rest of the world, and generally the CoA world can be unpopulated. We rarely see people questing when we are, and we think a big problem is going to be finding people to play with, and how the game will attract new people - particularly in our timezone (Australia/south east English-speaking Asia). Maybe we're wrong, and there's a large population - who are on when we're sleeping. It is isolating.
SECONDARY STUFF:
1. Upon creating a new character, the Prestige horse is great, but the Prestige screen adds to the overwhelm and maybe could be done later, eg, when the horse runs out. P said it adds to being too much to begin with.
2. When the Prestige horse is due to expire, a temporary mount would be good as a big complaint from C and P was the travel, particularly as they have no knowledge where to set ink. Fortunately P got a Rune Disk in Wheel of Fortune which was a big help. I bought diamonds to get C a mount to keep C in the game, but C still gave up.
3. It's lonely when starting as a newbie and nobody to talk to. We all want to interact and share, ask questions, brag even. A newbie guild where we can all figure things out together could've helped. Google and Runes of Magic has been our close friend, but sometimes we can't find anything because it may be CoA content. I don't know, for example, which classes(es) use a spear or which elites have the spear improvement skills (if any). I would've loved to be instantly in a guild when I create a character or have the option now or the future. However, I acknowledge advanced players may not want to lead a guild and answer puerile questions all day. This adds to the player-isolation.
(Afterthought: if many people create characters and instantly enter a guild, then instantly leave because it's an alt, that may not look good with a genuinely new player like P.)
4. We had to figure out housemaids, what to buy, how to level, perhaps something to be introduced after a while. Free buffs! Heck yeah. (Issues like this go back to the tutorials - I still don't know how P turned it all off and missed them, or maybe P sped through them and took no notice.) P doesn't like the house interface as it's too big and unintuitive. I asked for an example. P said: looking for housemaids but they're called servants, and didn't know what to choose. P didn't know what to do with the 15 unbridled enthusiasms after creating a character. I thought it was clear enough.
5. Upon starting, there's no primary skill in the action bar. P didn't know how to kill the spider, how to level up skills, and what is TP. What skills should P level up, at least until the player understands it more. P is adamant there wasn't a tutorial and doesn't know how to access them.
6. P suggested the system could suggest skills to level up, until we're around level 55. Some sort of glowing box and the words "Recommended to level" when we hover over it (class/es dependent). P's issue was there's no clear way to determine what skills are immediately useful.
7. More information about classes and class combinations, even if it's a link to a website. The CoA website is full of information and it's so well maintained. Well done to the game people, really. P suggested in-game links to a website. I suggested P is lazy. P still talks to me ...!
8. On the CoA website, I don't know what's a primary skill and what's an elite skill. If they were a different colour, I'd be able to compare. https://chroniclesofarcadia.com/skills. P didn't know what some of them meant in the real world, or how combination skills work. I recently tried to compare different mage classes, but gee ... trying to figure out what's a primary and elite skill whilst comparing every single one of them ate time.
9. An introduction to mini games later on after levelling a while will be good. P said without my instruction, P'd never know they existed, or how to complete them. P now loves the Malatina chest game.
10. What's a cenedril ... how do we do it and when ... P likes looting them. I don't know why haha. P had no idea about cenedrils and how to start.
11. QuestHelper is amazing, but as a newbie trying to create an account and start the game, this addon may be ignored. Is there any way to bake it in rather than it be an optional addon? P says it's one of the most important parts of questing.
12. We don't care about endgame, but we care about having fun, making mistakes, questing, making our characters better every day, and sharing our experiences (P mentioned a guild again). Learning is a huge part, but there's nobody to learn from. Getting from A to B is a big thing that P constantly referred to - back to the mount and what the heck are free unbridled enthusiasms again.
13. We really appreciate the level 80 starter gear. It allows us to do low level instances like Hall of Survivors, and we can do most cenedrils. We don't think it should be improved any more with an exception to a small weapon damage improvement. P said if it's too easy, it'll be boring, but a little bit more damage will be good - Blame Bendor and Mersi. I've no idea how to do most instances. It's unlikely I'll do them without a guild, which isolates us both.
14. I want to introduce P to guild war. Can the game can have a guild recruitment interface to make it easier to join a guild and advertise, rather than world shouts? Some sort of easy way to recruit or be recruited, based on what the person or guild is looking for? What if no guild is looking for newbie players?
15. Where are the free horse rental tickets from Malatina's games? They've disappeared and could be useful. Currently, I use my cenedril shards to buy a 7-day mount. I want to get the 2-person Flame mount, but temporary things on the way to my achievement will be good. P agrees, so that a person doesn't have an even slower game running around everywhere. Rental tickets with an 80% speed - not the 55%.
16. What about a web page that asks a bunch of questions and recommends what class combination you play, maybe give a percentage for each, and a link to a description and pros and cons of that class and the race to be chosen.
17. We don't want an increase in currencies, we don't want diamonds other than to buy our perfect mount, or even endgame gear. We just want to play and have fun, and learning what to do is the pathway to that. I'm approaching the end of my limited knowledge with P who, proudly, recently hit level 105/105 but there was no applause or recognition of this achievement.
18. Tutorials at appropriate times will be good, just like the Robin tutorial. Completing it perhaps gives us a relevant buff (create a housemaid, level it up for the first time - more unbridled enthusiasm, low level food, and a battle/magic buff as a taster) (hitting level 50, we get a mail about elites and old bags, where to go) (hitting level 93 we get an option to take us to the cenedril quest and 5 free golden hammers), (hitting level 105 we get an automatic free world chat announcement of the achievement - and it is an achievement!, plus, 10 free megaphones to talk to the world about it, the transport book was important too), and of course, so much more. These aren't big gifts and relate directly to the achievement, and it's more about introducing content. Tutorials that don't nag but are easily accessible and talk us through it with a link to an external web page for more information, perhaps. P is ambivalent here - P endorses tutorials, but either too lazy to read them properly, or just skips through like clicking "Yes" on the terms and conditions. I don't know if P is isolated with this. Perhaps everybody else reads and learns from them.
19. We don't need more gold and we get 70-90 million questing to level 105. An important thing P needed was the level 80 starter gear AND knowledge about it upfront (eg, I said when I last played, the NPC was right next to the new character spawn point), P kept going back to a mount (questing all over maps with a slow or no mount is awful), and more transport runes.
20. Changes in the game: P didn't know what "patch notes" were until I explained it. Changes to the game are lost on P. I thought they were an obvious part of the launcher. P explained P saw them, but just didn't know what it was about. Remember: P has never played an MMO before, and we both rarely play games (except CoA of course!)
21. Although there are changes in patch notes, the knowledge is lost on newbies and returning players unless we go through endless patch notes. Cenedrils, robots, artefacts, etc - we just don't know what to do - this links back to the primary issue of knowledge and human contact. We are isolated from a lot of game content and knowledge.
We really wanted to help with these experiences, and we'll really appreciate it if it's taken in good faith and nobody derides us. As you hopefully see, they are our experiences with a sprinkle of balanced complaints based on real-world experiences. We hope everybody enjoys the game. I certainly like the nostalgia and sharing it with people around me.
