Noob Content?

[Djeserit]

I watched the Mod 8 preview with Kate Paiz about the new character generation system.

This seems to be aimed at Noobs, not newbies. The pre-rolled builds that exist are so gimped it's laughable, I expect the added 'paths' to be the same. Will any of them be multi-classed even?

New players already suffer from so many disadvantages: no gear, no money, 28 pt. builds. Character building is the only area where new players are actually on an even playing field with established players (albeit with 28 pts. only and less tomes to work with). To saddle them with a bad build seems harsh and likely to drive them from the game.



I mean this as a serious question and I hope I get a serious answer:

Do we really have new players coming in who use the default generated characters? Does Turbine have some reason for thinking this add-on will really encourage new players?

(Like do they have a survey of trial accounts who didn't join and why not. Was it really that they couldn't build a better toon themselves? More likely it was the difficulty finding groups and the 1750 favor requirement, grouping with experienced players who have done the limited lowbie content a hundred times and their over-twinked toons.)

Just curious what Turbine is thinking.


??

[Pyromaniac]

From what I've read on the forums and seen from various articles:

-Yes they think the NPL will grow the game/retain new players

Do I think so.....well it will give the new players something to do for a month, but as the high end content has dried up it means they'll leave after they hit end game. And people can hit end game within a week if they want to.

The pre-rolled builds aren't that bad of an idea given there's no option to respec skill points

[Lorien_the_First_One]

This seems to be aimed at Noobs, not newbies. The pre-rolled builds that exist are so gimped it's laughable, I expect the added 'paths' to be the same. Will any of them be multi-classed even?

So with no evidence you assume they will be bad because the ones designed by different devs several years ago were? Um...ya right. A for multi classed - they shouldn't be. New players should go pure, multi can create more problems than it fixes for new players.

To saddle them with a bad build seems harsh and likely to drive them from the game.

They can still make their own if they know how...meaning they are in the same or better position than when you started playing.

[Angelus_dead]

Just curious what Turbine is thinking.

Here's what I think they were thinking:
"Oh no, Age of Conan has this fancy scripted introduction island for the first 25% of levels, with all kinds of helpful interactive NPCs. We've got to match that feature or AOC will kill us!"

Obviously, that line of reasoning doesn't make sense, and obviously Turbine failed to release their New Player Experience in time to compete with the Conan launch. But I still suspect that's what motivated them.

[Borror0]

We're going to see it this week, if everything goes as planned. I'm also very scared that these build will be horrible ones...

...but it's not like we can do anything until we see them. I feel there is going to be a lot of criticism.

[Shagn]

This seems to be aimed at Noobs, not newbies. The pre-rolled builds that exist are so gimped it's laughable, I expect the added 'paths' to be the same. Will any of them be multi-classed even?

New players already suffer from so many disadvantages: no gear, no money, 28 pt. builds. Character building is the only area where new players are actually on an even playing field with established players (albeit with 28 pts. only and less tomes to work with). To saddle them with a bad build seems harsh and likely to drive them from the game.

The pre-rolled builds and templates that are available are a joke. I saw the ones on tentonhammer and those sucked as well. I hope Turbine has been looking through the forums at builds that actually work - and not the "flavor of the month" builds either. Something tells me they are going to put in a ranged combat or crossbow template. ROFL

New players are always going to be at a disadvantage. That is part of the reward for playing system. The more you play the better your character(s) can get.

[side note]The reward system worked with extra characters slots, too. You used to get another character slot for each character you got 1750 favor on. It was perfect, and encouraged everybody to play each character (challenge them) to play every quest. Turbine changed it to cap the amount of slots so now everybody is screaming at them for more slots. No incentive to hit 1750 favor any more... +2 tome? psssh. loot one or trade/buy one... And now they are automatically giving everybody 10 slots, no more, no less. That will satiate power gamers for one week until that character hits cap too. lol

[Angelus_dead]

We're going to see it this week, if everything goes as planned. I'm also very scared that these build will be horrible ones...

On the plus side, the contents of the builds themselves are probably easily changable, and represent on a small fraction of the effort spend on New Player stuff.

Specifically, we've seen there are 3 bard builds you can choose, each obviously aimed at one of the 3 specialties. Already you can see the shortcomings there, because there should be more than 1 kind of Warchanter build. Not only is there the important issue of TWF/THF warchanter, but there's also the whole huge topic of how well that specialty synergizes with a few levels of a martial class. And of course, multiclassing appears to be completely beyond the scope of their sample builds: which means that an important cause of character-building complexity is going completely unaddressed.

[Borror0]

On the plus side, the contents of the builds themselves are probably easily changable

Specifically, we've seen there are 3 bard builds you can choose, each obviously aimed at one of the 3 specialties. Already you can see the shortcomings there, because there should be more than 1 kind of Warchanter build. Not only is there the important issue of TWF/THF warchanter.

Or just that building a build around Virtuoso is kinda... hard? And most likely a very bad idea?

There is also the problem that, if they add Virtuoso II, it will mess a lot of things. Say Virtuoso II requires Negociator, how does Turbine react to that? Do they change the path so that the build gets better or leave it as is? If they change it, how does that affect thoser that were already following that path?

I just hope they thought about that.

As for TWF/THF, I also thought about that. I have hopes that they chose the proper fighting for the race. TWF drows, THF WF and so on.

[...] but there's also the whole huge topic of how well that specialty synergizes with a few levels of a martial class.

Personally, I'm willing to give up that for now because I recognize it may be harder to work around.

Pure classes can be 'decent' and will be better if turbine start making high level enhancements.

[Missing_Minds]

Specifically, we've seen there are 3 bard builds you can choose, each obviously aimed at one of the 3 specialties. Already you can see the shortcomings there, because there should be more than 1 kind of Warchanter build

Why? Why do new players need to have the hand held for EVERY POSSIBLE VARIATION? That is down right wasteful of time.

The best thing you can do for new players is to give them examples for how to build one of each main type of bard varaitation, and let the player learn and create their own from there. That is the POINT of templates. They are not supposed to be something OMG, I"M UBER NOW!!!11!!11 They are supposed to be something sturdy that they can use to learn the game.
Heck, even the Players Handbook gave examples of characters, and those were by no means "the" thing to do.

[Angelus_dead]

Why? Why do new players need to have the hand held for EVERY POSSIBLE VARIATION? That is down right wasteful of time.

The best thing you can do for new players is to give them examples for how to build one of each main type of bard varaitation

Well, if they're all pure bards, then the difference between a TWF and THF warchanter are greater than between a warchanter and spellchanter. TWF warchanter is dependent on having high dex to meet feat requirements, which other bards don't need, and which (unlike feats and APs) DDO won't let you respec later.

As to why new players need to be handheld for variations- well, that's what Turbine decided to do, don't ask me to justify it.

A point, though, is that omitting bard/fig or bard/barb warchanters and bard/sorc or bard/wiz spellsingers is undermining what they decided to do, which is make it dead easy for new players to handle build complexiies, w.

[Mithran]

I sincerely hope that Turbine has learned something from the failure of their old prerolls, and that they'll instead take examples of the higher level (and quite successful) builds posted on Class Forums by the experienced players. They've already indicated that it won't min/max. I won't comment on whether this, in and of itself, is a mistake, as my own preference is for balanced rolls too, but I know that many very experienced players here regard anything other than minimizing/maximizing as poorly-rolled. While I personally disagree with the conclusion, it's certainly something for the developers to consider.

[Milolyen]

First - They already said you can still go in and customize a char the way you want and that has not changed.

Second - These templates are for new players that don't know the game and won't know the best way to customize a char. The current ones are a joke ... everyone knows that. So why can't they go in and fix them so that more new people that just started won't go in and figure "hey I don't know the game so I will just use one of the recommended builds because the game should know a good build more than I do" and get stuck with a crappy build. I also thought (as a player base) we decided we like the fact that there is many many ways to build a char and the choices we have. This is just a way to convey those choices to a new player. Okay I am a new player. I would like to build a bard. What? There are three ways to build one?

Third - While I have only been visiting the forums regularly for about 10 months now, I STILL can't count how many threads I have seen complaining about a) crappy recommended stats and build's and b)the lack of awe in the low lvl quests and the complaints on how many "sewer" quests there are at lower lvls. So of course the reason behind them doing this is because of AoC release and could not have anything to do with them listening to their customers/excustomers.

Milolyen

[frugal_gourmet]

Yeah, I'm not convinced they were motivated by AOC necessarily. The new player experiencer is atrocious. Were I not a PNP D&D player, I may have given up. What probably sucked me in is my first WaterWorks and STK runs with groups, and even those quests are hardly that epic. The higher level content is so much cooler.

[kingfisher]

the NPE templates should consist of 1 build - a fatty dwarf cleric. really it should be maniditory that all noobs play a cleric first. they will learn the game, always get party invites and meet people, earn favor and loot.

of course i am kidding, but whenever i meet a n00b who complains of their rogue getting owned i suggest that he/she make a cleric until they get familar with the game and open up 32 pt builds.

[ArkoHighStar]

Here's what I think they were thinking:
"Oh no, Age of Conan has this fancy scripted introduction island for the first 25% of levels, with all kinds of helpful interactive NPCs. We've got to match that feature or AOC will kill us!"

Obviously, that line of reasoning doesn't make sense, and obviously Turbine failed to release their New Player Experience in time to compete with the Conan launch. But I still suspect that's what motivated them.

I think they realizedthe shortcomings of the first few levels long before the AoC system was revealed, and that it needed revamping. However to say the implementation of said revamp wasn't inspired by the AoC lowbie island experience would be hard to sell. And looking aroound, Turbine isn't the only one trying this out, Vanguard is releasing a newbie island as well, and Tabula Rasa is doing something similiar. So we can honestly say that AoC's biggest contribution so far to MMO design has been the newbie island.

[eonfreon]

LOL, I remember my first character in DDO.

I started on the 10 day free trial with two friends.

One friend was a Dwarf THF Ranger.

My other friend was a Human Paladin.

And I was the Elf Cleric because I wanted to cast spells and I figured I might as well be able to heal us all.

I hadn't played D&D since AD&D 2.0, so I created one with 18 Wis and 8 Cha- I figured it for a dump stat!

We had no idea you could purchase cure pots for the first couple of weeks (we all figured you only got what you found so we were very keen on smashing everything).

The Pally had no idea how to use his LOH's or Smites.

And I used to farm the solo quest at the Training Square with the Quickfoot Rogues and the exploding barrels (you didn't even have to fight them, them range the barrels and the explosions would kill them) because the end chest always had 2 or more cure light wound pots that would bind!!

I think more important then even a build, because let's face it they'll be lucky to get to level 6 with their first builds
( I think I got to level 5 when someone first asked me if I had DV's- Huh? What the heck's that?) before rerolling, is someway to get acquainted with StormReach.

When we first started, we didn't have much time when we could all get online together (we didn't even all live in the same city), so when we did we just ran around looking for quests. As soon as we finished a dungeon or 3, we logged off.

Exploring Stormreach came later.

A tutorial/ quest to familiarize newbs to stormreach would be a bonus.

Letting them know that they can get a free Feat respec by talking to the lady in the Market by the mailbox square for example, could seriously help some newb fix a mistake in his Feat selection or just allow him to try something he's unsure about, secure that he can change if it performs less than he expected.

[TEK]

Or just that building a build around Virtuoso is kinda... hard? And most likely a very bad idea?

I dont see how this can be true in any kinda sense

[Borror0]

I dont see how this can be true in any kinda sense

Well, it is. Build me a build that focuses on the main strength of Virtuosos. Impossible.

Virtuoso is too... general.

[TEK]

Well, it is. Build me a build that focuses on the main strength of Virtuosos. Impossible.

Virtuoso is too... general.

1) general doesn't equal hard to start off with.

2) i already have. and YOU have already played with all three types of bards i made. so that makes the "impossible" statement false since all 3 builds were easy to make, play, and shine

[Borror0]

general doesn't equal hard to start off with.

Making a bard centred around the capacities to play song is... kind of lame.

Also, Virtuoso is a weak enhancement and you would most likely be better off with Spellsinger, unless you don't meet the prereqs.