Make this game more appealing!

[Balrose]

Don't get me wrong. I love this game! I've played many, and settled on this as the one for me. Unfortunately, try as I may, I can't hold on to any new players beyond level 4. And it's understandable. The beauty and flow of this game are only conceivable after someone has stuck it out for a long run into mid-high level content. After a new player has suffered through slaying cultists and suhuagin for hours with their one attack or spell, they move on to what promises to be an entire city full of sewers inhabited by nothing but kobolds. I try to appeal to the players by saying, "this game holds awe inspiring scenery, innovative customization, as well as narrated, puzzle filled, and challenging quest." I tell them that it is void of repetitious creature slaying grinds and noob-pwner mentality teen angst. But all they can see before them, after 6 hours of game-play, is an interface they don't understand, features they cannot access, and an endless line of "Kill the fish/lizard in my sewers" quests.

Possible ideas to hook those fools into some longevity:

-Throw some choices out there early on. Give the players some story options, maybe even an alternate starting zone. Give some **** dialog options other than "Is there a reward involved, blah blah". For that matter, throw evil into the mix. Why not? There is already enough game content to compensate for evil. Hell, some of the quests seem geared toward evil players. For example "Let's murder an entire city of peaceful Minotaur" Put in some evil aligned weapons, maybe even alignment restricted prestige classes. Evil adventurers work with good all the time. Stormreach is a powerful civilization, enough so that evil will remain in check, and could even benefit the town Anyway, story options really get a new player into the realm. The ones available have been pointed out as "Chaotic Neutral" at best. When there options are "Be a jerk, or don't do the quest", people stop paying attention to the story.

-Have a demonstration video or tour of Stormreach once the players get there. Like, "hey here is an AH, see all the adventurers bartering for items. Here is the pawn shop. Here is a crafting device that allows you to customize your gear with the right ingredients" That says to the burdened and overwhelmed player, "there is a lot to do here, and you are special. Hang in there."

-Make some more flashy early quests. I mean, the White Dragon vs. Mind flayer thing is pretty sweet, but it's time to step it up a notch.

-On a personal note: Gnomes and Druids

So, that should keep you busy for at least a decade. I prefer the continued work on end game content in many ways. But, I have noticed this pattern for new players and thought I'd share. Is anyone else noticing/have the same issues? Better early game content would make TRing much more appealing too

[angelbound]

There is good and evil choices in this game? What the hek? When do you get to choose?

[Glenalth]

There is good and evil choices in this game? What the hek? When do you get to choose?

In the dialog boxes and through your actions in some quests.

[Mavnas]

Take them them out to the Cerulean hills. At least there's orcs there.

[Nebless]

I'd like it if they'd just fill in the rest of the city. That alone would provide alternates in the quest chains (i.e. Kobalds in the start quests).

[MrWizard]

i think most games like this have that issue...

a nice players manual would go 100% towards them getting more customers as even the very experienced players have to ask questions in the forums all the time..questions that could easily be put into a player manual (like the one they had when they first started.)

[hecate355]

If newbies group up actively, they end up at quite some places already at level 3-4, not like it takes day to get to level 3.

I find that need to grind those kobolds at harbor is getting less and less, there is sharn, carnival, tangleroot. All these are just one step away. Actually it is TR-s mostly who sit at harbor and grind things , not newbies.

[Uska]

Don't get me wrong. I love this game! I've played many, and settled on this as the one for me. Unfortunately, try as I may, I can't hold on to any new players beyond level 4. And it's understandable. The beauty and flow of this game are only conceivable after someone has stuck it out for a long run into mid-high level content. After a new player has suffered through slaying cultists and suhuagin for hours with their one attack or spell, they move on to what promises to be an entire city full of sewers inhabited by nothing but kobolds. I try to appeal to the players by saying, "this game holds awe inspiring scenery, innovative customization, as well as narrated, puzzle filled, and challenging quest." I tell them that it is void of repetitious creature slaying grinds and noob-pwner mentality teen angst. But all they can see before them, after 6 hours of game-play, is an interface they don't understand, features they cannot access, and an endless line of "Kill the fish/lizard in my sewers" quests.

Possible ideas to hook those fools into some longevity:

-Throw some choices out there early on. Give the players some story options, maybe even an alternate starting zone. Give some **** dialog options other than "Is there a reward involved, blah blah". For that matter, throw evil into the mix. Why not? There is already enough game content to compensate for evil. Hell, some of the quests seem geared toward evil players. For example "Let's murder an entire city of peaceful Minotaur" Put in some evil aligned weapons, maybe even alignment restricted prestige classes. Evil adventurers work with good all the time. Stormreach is a powerful civilization, enough so that evil will remain in check, and could even benefit the town Anyway, story options really get a new player into the realm. The ones available have been pointed out as "Chaotic Neutral" at best. When there options are "Be a jerk, or don't do the quest", people stop paying attention to the story.-Have a demonstration video or tour of Stormreach once the players get there. Like, "hey here is an AH, see all the adventurers bartering for items. Here is the pawn shop. Here is a crafting device that allows you to customize your gear with the right ingredients" That says to the burdened and overwhelmed player, "there is a lot to do here, and you are special. Hang in there."

-Make some more flashy early quests. I mean, the White Dragon vs. Mind flayer thing is pretty sweet, but it's time to step it up a notch.

-On a personal note: Gnomes and Druids

So, that should keep you busy for at least a decade. I prefer the continued work on end game content in many ways. But, I have noticed this pattern for new players and thought I'd share. Is anyone else noticing/have the same issues? Better early game content would make TRing much more appealing too

NO to evil 1 second after they add evil I am gone The rest of your ideas have some merit so -1 for evil suggestion +1 for the rest balance = 0

[Kominalito]

2 things...

1) you can level past 4 in a day. its not powergaming, its not elitist, its its fact.
2) i dont mean to be sour, but a player that has never gotten a toon past 4 would have no idea what needs to be "stepped up a notch" for anything in the game at all.

if you disagree with me, then let me ask you a few things...

-what do you think of gianthold?
-do you think its pretty cool that there is a town named meridia in the middle of an explorer map?
-what about when you finish fighting the dragon in the VON raid and plummet to your death in the middle of the marketplace?
-have you seen the historical plays in Phiarlan?
-what about the return to waterworks in the invaders run?

these are all neat additions that you will probably find pretty awesome if you play the game a bit. its pretty lame to join up, barely scratch the surface, then call out the devs for not putting enough pizazzle in teh story and scenery.

[Balrose]

2 things...

1) you can level past 4 in a day. its not powergaming, its not elitist, its its fact.
2) i dont mean to be sour, but a player that has never gotten a toon past 4 would have no idea what needs to be "stepped up a notch" for anything in the game at all.

if you disagree with me, then let me ask you a few things...

I agree fully, as a matter of fact. After playing for a few weeks, I was able to find all these awesome things you mention. My concerns come from friends getting started into the game. I'm a major pimp of DDO and the dryness of starting play is always mentioned by those just starting in, followed by, "I'm bored with it". My wish here is to see the starting gameplay a little more pazzazzy to get that initial interest flaring.

Regardless how many hours one plays a day, it does take several playing hours to get through level 4 when you are not familiar with the game. And that seems to be just enough time to get intro players dismal about what could possibly be offered later.


Actually, I've never seen the Pharlan plays. I need to look in to that. thanks!

[Balrose]

NO to evil 1 second after they add evil I am gone The rest of your ideas have some merit so -1 for evil suggestion +1 for the rest balance = 0

haha, why the evil hate? I'm always a NG player myself, but am I missing something about evil here. There are evil heroes out there. Heck, Liches exist, and to be a lich in DnD, you are supposed to call on evil energies to preserve your life. Thus you become evil.

I wouldn't want "Factions" so to speak, just diverse alignment possibilities. Many folk in DDO tend to play Evil personalities already. And there are already too many who just pick an alignment for power playing anyway. Starting characters with a choice to respond more closely to their temperament as apposed to the generic and often CN responses is where I am going with this.

Is there something I am missing about Evil here?

[pwentt]

The biggest problem is level flow and quest design. The quests have almost 0 unifying theme after you get out of Korthos unless you actually buy an adventure pack which most new players start as free to play. There are no "quest hubs" you kind of wander aimlessly until you find a quest and god forbid a new player enters the market and sees massive amounts of quests they don't have access to. There is nothing that tells a player in any sort of story terms ok you've made it to the end of the harbor quests head here for more things to do. Quests of all levels are spread everywhere and it makes new people go why can't I go here or do this without giving them a reason.

The map is a giant mess until you get used to it. The symbols for shops and auction house don't make any sense, neither do the symbols used to note an entrance to a new part of the city. The scale of the map also doesn't make any sense. You have to scroll the **** thing or rescale it to get it to fit.

There is nothing to explain what pawn brokers are or where you can find higher level versions of certain vendors. Certainly no easier access to things like potions or larger collectables bags by the time you realize you need them you've probably dumped what little plat you had on trying to upgrade your +2 shortsword of insert pointless stat here. I can see not giving out easy upgrades later in the game but for new players getting that awesome flaming weaponry in Korthos right at the start then not getting anything till they either get massively lucky or save enough gold to afford the ridiculous amounts on the auction house its just kind of silly.

The only reason my GF and I stuck with it was because we are very experienced MMO players and I've spent years playing 3.5 DnD so I at least had an idea of what to expect and how to build.

This game is very much NOT new player friendly.

[donfilibuster]

Some new players just expect too much from start, both of ddo as a mmo and of ddo as d&d.
It is an appeal that ddo's quests resemble a dungeon crawl, which is traditional in d&d.
You go to a sewers or cavern and kill the critters, be them spiders, goblins, orcs, kobolds, ogres, trolls or zombies.

The harbor quests are quite fine, they make you learn the combat system more than korthos do.
You can't possibly get the hang of it if there weren't multiple quests of facing the kobold gang,
let alone move on to face the hobgoblin tribes which are hard enough to the first time player.

The first harbor's only fault is giving a number of people the impression the whole of stormreach is the harbor.
The second fault, one that leads to all the horror pugs, is that new players look at the vets and well
geared zergers and try to emulate them.

After all, if they can go around killing all the kobolds without a scratch, so can they isn't it.
It's not that you can't use your starter greataxe to work your way through the harbor, yet clearly lead to a fail when players try to keep up with all the zergers dashing by with their lv 4 weapons.
Surely this is none of the quest's fault, it's all player's doing.

[pwentt]

Some new players just expect too much from start, both of ddo as a mmo and of ddo as d&d.
It is an appeal that ddo's quests resemble a dungeon crawl, which is traditional in d&d.
You go to a sewers or cavern and kill the critters, be them spiders, goblins, orcs, kobolds, ogres, trolls or zombies.

The harbor quests are quite fine, they make you learn the combat system more than korthos do.
You can't possibly get the hang of it if there weren't multiple quests of facing the kobold gang,
let alone move on to face the hobgoblin tribes which are hard enough to the first time player.

The first harbor's only fault is giving a number of people the impression the whole of stormreach is the harbor.
The second fault, one that leads to all the horror pugs, is that new players look at the vets and well
geared zergers and try to emulate them.

After all, if they can go around killing all the kobolds without a scratch, so can they isn't it.
It's not that you can't use your starter greataxe to work your way through the harbor, yet clearly lead to a fail when players try to keep up with all the zergers dashing by with their lv 4 weapons.
Surely this is none of the quest's fault, it's all player's doing.

I'll hit on a couple of your points. Firstly the harbor does nothing to "make you learn the combat system" at least not anything different than what korthos does, which is nothing. There are no real tutorials in the game outside of pre-korthos when jeets asks you to smash some crates with the new weapons he gives you that does anything to explain the combat system. Sure an experienced gamer will go ok I get im supposed to use spells or swing weapons now how do i equip stuff and where are my spells I picked and go looking for that information. It's not presented in any sort of reasonable way to anyone new to video gaming in general though which many players are seeing as this is free to play for at least a little while. There is also nothing that teaches players what DR is, how the bonus's work for different things like AC and hit, etc. There are a lot of core game systems that get spelled out in the pen and paper version of the game on both the character sheet and players handbook that DDO glosses over entirely.

Secondly as far as new people thinking they should be able to do the same things as vets. Why shouldn't new players be given that opportunity? The only reason vets have that ability is they got gear later and its usable at lvls that don't really make a lot of sense. Same thing with the difference in stats. Sure they've played longer but nothing defines that for a new player all they see is someone has shiny awesome weapons at their lvl and they ask themselves why don't I get cool stuff too, its an arbitrary fun barrier. I'm not saying give them a +1 frost greataxe of pure good at the earliest minimum lvl but things like +1 acid greatswords could drop more often than they currently do. Being lvl6 and still running around with your +2 shortsword because its the best weapon you've gotten is not exactly fun. Compounding this is when you get access to new characters starting at lvl4 you get free fiery weapons, a f2p character wouldn't have that unless they were lucky or someone had sympathy on them.

So while sure some is player fault there really is a lot of things wrong with the design at least at early lvls that prevent people from sticking with the game long enough to get into the "fun" zone.

A lot of this could be fixed as well with better tooltips. How many times do we have to explain in /advice why someones AC is what it is when they should be able to hover over AC and see where the bonus's are coming from.

[TheBroken_JPK]

The second fault, one that leads to all the horror pugs, is that new players look at the vets and well
geared zergers and try to emulate them.
.

Odd. I attribute the fact that as I tried to emulate the zergers I became a more knowledgeable and better player. I researched builds. I researched weapons. I researched feats. It wasn't long before I made a top-notch dps character.

If there is a fault for bad players staying bad its that a quest can be zerged by one person. These bad players are perfectly happy to stay horrible, and let the zergers/vets pike them through the entire game.

[TheBroken_JPK]

A lot of this could be fixed as well with better tooltips. How many times do we have to explain in /advice why someones AC is what it is when they should be able to hover over AC and see where the bonus's are coming from.

*Ahem* You may want to hover over your AC. It does do what you say it should do.

[sweez]

The biggest problem is level flow and quest design. The quests have almost 0 unifying theme after you get out of Korthos unless you actually buy an adventure pack which most new players start as free to play. There are no "quest hubs" you kind of wander aimlessly until you find a quest and god forbid a new player enters the market and sees massive amounts of quests they don't have access to. There is nothing that tells a player in any sort of story terms ok you've made it to the end of the harbor quests head here for more things to do. Quests of all levels are spread everywhere and it makes new people go why can't I go here or do this without giving them a reason.

The map is a giant mess until you get used to it. The symbols for shops and auction house don't make any sense, neither do the symbols used to note an entrance to a new part of the city. The scale of the map also doesn't make any sense. You have to scroll the **** thing or rescale it to get it to fit.

There is nothing to explain what pawn brokers are or where you can find higher level versions of certain vendors. Certainly no easier access to things like potions or larger collectables bags by the time you realize you need them you've probably dumped what little plat you had on trying to upgrade your +2 shortsword of insert pointless stat here. I can see not giving out easy upgrades later in the game but for new players getting that awesome flaming weaponry in Korthos right at the start then not getting anything till they either get massively lucky or save enough gold to afford the ridiculous amounts on the auction house its just kind of silly.

DDO Wiki. Forums. Players who do not keep themselves informed by external means, do we really want them?

[cdemeritt]

After a new player has suffered through slaying cultists and suhuagin for hours with their one attack or spell, they move on to what promises to be an entire city full of sewers inhabited by nothing but kobolds. ..... and an endless line of "Kill the fish/lizard in my sewers" quests.

You should have seen it before korthos.....In those early days, Before Vet status and starting in the harbor, (most of the Korthos quests were in the harbor at that time, only with Kobolds and slimes instead of fish people), I wanted to rename the game from Dungeons and Dragons to Sewers and Kobolds. At least now there is more variety.... and you see a Dragon before level 10....

Now for more variety in encounter types: Assuming F2P available only

learn the Cerulean hills, this is an easy place to lead a group through at low levels and highlights some of the points your trying to show off and it is F2P (also no kobolds there).

Redfang the unruled is a lvl 3 market quest, in a basement vs a sewer, and no kobold


Try your hand at the depths series in House Deneith. These 4 quests might be a little rough on a new lvl 4 toon, as 2 are lvl 4 quests, 2 are lvl 5... But 4 sewers (yes more sewers) each with it's own set of mobs, 1 has trogs earth elementals, slimes, and hellhounds, next has Hobgoblins and undead, next a good mix of slimes, undead, trolls, minotars, Elementals, Dogs, etc. and the last is many ogres... A good departure from the harbor sewers...

If you can get through that ok, you can head over to House Kundarak, These quests are even harder lvl 5-6 quests, but the Chamber of Insanity, Ruined halls, Forgotten Caverns, and lair of summoning all have a interesting mix.

Quests to avoid if trying to keep people interested: Proof is in the Poison, Freshen the Air, Stealthy Repossession.


If Not F2P, or have some adventure packs, ones with good variety to get away from Sewers and Kobolds:

Tangleroot: nice explorer, mostly easy to run solo, Attack on Splinterskull (lvl 3-7 quests)(mainly hobgoblins, but nice to be free of kobolds)

Shan-To-Kor: AKA:STK : (lvl 3-5 quests) While still sewers, and pt 1 is kobold, Pt 2 is mainly hobgoblins, and Pt3 also Hobgoblins, bit spiders, ele's and a construct boss.

The Catacombs: (lvl 3 quests) Not a particularly liked quest chain, but is mainly undead, and also nice to get away form the harbor


These are just some ideas... if you take new players though some of these, and they still won't bite, well this might not be the game for them. I know the frustrations of just trying to get friends to give it a shot... Some just won't do it even though they are fanatical gamers, and it's free...

Must be just as bad for you, they just start to get to the good stuff when they quit.

[Morlen]

I believe they have fixed some quests that had to may Kobolds in them early on... Now and again I will still see some cultist running in a peculiar patrol pattern, similar nay IDENTICAL to their kobold forerunners... lol

[pwentt]

DDO Wiki. Forums. Players who do not keep themselves informed by external means, do we really want them?

That's all fine and good at later lvls but why do they need to do that at lvl4? It'd be like telling you build your own xbox with this box of parts and not giving you instructions. And besides as a company turbine wants these players as they will shell out money for points. That's the whole point of this, retaining customers by having a more solidly designed game. I'm not saying make the quests easier but for example why the hell did it take so long to add the search function to the auction house? There are ease of living things that can be done without actually making the game easier.