The Grotto and your new Caster

[Hafeal]

So, I was running the Grotto with a new TR - I have not done that in a long time. I was rezzing a rarely played capped Wizard and TR'd him to a 2nd life. I did have Tool Tips turned OFF - so if some of these are in there, great.

A couple of thoughts, in thinking about a new player to the game trying to play a caster, and how they might view some of the following:

1) Nothing says in game dialogue to rest or prepare spells when speaking to Jeets.
2) When you talk to Cellimas, you fight a Sahugin, pull a lever, head to another room with your new companions. In the new room, you fight 6 or so Sahugin. With no spells for the caster.
3) Somehow, despite the might of my companions, I had all the aggro.
4) When you next go to the shrine, there was nothing to indicate you can prep spells, that you should prep spells or how to do it.
5) Even if you prepare spells, you have no spell components.
6) Nothing says to put spells into a hotbar for casting.
7) Nothing says you should activate metamagics - if you took any.
8) In the next battle (with High Priestess Sahugin), the caster again gets all aggro.
9) The reward at the end of an eternal wand is, well, underwhelming, especially if you don't have spells or spells effected by the wands. You then get to pick a weapon as though you are melee. Again - maybe practical,, but less than inspriing if you wanted to roll the iconic D&D Wizard.

Overall, I think, as a Caster, if I were new, it would be less than clear and perhaps a little frustrating. It certainly woul dbe disappointing to be a "caster" and not be able to cast but have swing a quarterstaff for your intro quest to the game.

Just hoping the new Sharn area, if it has a new starter area, will be more intuitive and have some better explanations.



P.S. I am sure some of these have been raised in the past, just reminding devs that these are hopefully things to work on.

[Enoach]

I do not remember any Hints per say that would tell you this.

Things I do know may help clue a new player in, but would require them to be more curious about their character and the HUD before they start...

If they open their character sheet and view all the tabs they will see the unprepared spell slots. While you are at the first zone in area it acts in the same way as a bar allowing you to prepare spells. In the upper screen you will see the icon which when you mouse over will indicate you can change your spells.

If you don't fill all of your spell slots, when you close your character sheet a message on the screen will indicate you have spell slots to fill.

While it has been awhile since I did this, but I vaguely remember that when you talk with Talbron Tewn that he gives you spell components in the same way talking with Jeets he gives you Trapping tools if you are a rogue/artificer

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Of course all of this seems to be more along the lines that a player is more curious about their options/settings then lets just get going.

[Hafeal]

I do not remember any Hints per say that would tell you this.

Things I do know may help clue a new player in, but would require them to be more curious about their character and the HUD before they start...

If they open their character sheet and view all the tabs they will see the unprepared spell slots. While you are at the first zone in area it acts in the same way as a bar allowing you to prepare spells. In the upper screen you will see the icon which when you mouse over will indicate you can change your spells.

If you don't fill all of your spell slots, when you close your character sheet a message on the screen will indicate you have spell slots to fill.

Nothing intuitive about this ... I had no idea. I don't recall the bar symbol on my hotbar - but - it could have been there and I missed it. Again, should be much, much more obvious. I cannot imagine many players knowing this or working it through their first time playing DDO.

Once you leave character creation, in which you picked your spells, I am sure players have left scratching their head on how to actually cast them. There should be a mechanism to have your spells already put onto to your character sheet or mecahnism to teach players how to do that right at the beach area.

While it has been awhile since I did this, but I vaguely remember that when you talk with Talbron Tewn that he gives you spell components in the same way talking with Jeets he gives you Trapping tools if you are a rogue/artificer

Now I spoke to TT but he offered nothing - now maybe it was becasueI had no prepaed spells. Again, something should be done to help make this more obvious and get casters their spells.

Overall, this is something I believe could be vastly improved for a new player experience. If we do NOT have a new Sharn starter area, then I hope Korthos can be revamped.