Post by felkin on Oct 15, 2014 17:25:43 GMT
This is a hefty read, so here's a TL;DR - new players will get deterred from reaching the meat of the game, due to a slow early. Lower the intervals between progression milestones and add more varied actvitivies within the game.
Context:
I'm a level 19 player, having started around 1month ago and have only been doing battle, a little bit of tradeskilling, looked into guilds and played with the market. My knowledge on crafting is limited to the bits I read on the chat from other people, so take this more so as an observation from a new player who is really into game design.
Problem:
I am aware that the game is ment to be a very slow paced one, with extremely slow progression, to make the milestones of leveling feel very rewarding. That is all well and is an acceptable and fun style that can attract some types of players. However, I do beleive there is a pacing issue with it.
Mainly the problem stems from the fact that the player spends extreme amounts of time simply grinding the level up/ trade good until they reach the milestone to feel like they've "unlocked" something. The level-up is the main form of reward in any RPG and while I'm not saying it takes too long to level, I'm saying it takes too long to reach the 10 level milestone.
To veteran players this is no problem, they're used to it and they have more interaction with the game via the means of crafting and good selling. However this is simply untrue to a new player. From what I've noticed in this 1 month of playing is that I had to do something different that pick a quest and keep clicking "again" only 5 times in total. Once to get my level 11 gear, once to check out how guilds look and 3 times spent dismantling/selling. All in 1 month of gametime.
Is this too slow for a new player? Yes, extremely so, I can see a lot of people who have and will quit just because they won't feel like they've had anything different to do in time periods way too long. If the player doesn't have any kind of different interaction with the game than the grind in over a week, he will start losing motivation to reach that milestone. The time period is too long.
Suggested solutions:
Add more varied player interaction with the game in short terms. Something to constantly break the monotone and make the player feel like he is progressing at much shorter intervals than right now.
More specificaly:
1. Gear types that would get tier upgrades every 5 levels or even less. This can be a single piece or multiples. A very VERY cool feature that Aion added a few months ago was a Plume piece that would have to be refined for a cost to improve in stats. The refinery is near infinite and is only limited to funds. Each upgrade the chance to upgrade it again decreases. A similar system was employed in Uncharted Waters Online with ship fusion which leads to another suggestion :
2. Gear fusion.
Basicaly imagine you got your uber sword and a gazillion greens/blues/whites you dont need. You can sell em, you can dismantle em. Both are cool and all, but what if we did a 3rd type - fusion.
Basicaly you take your main equip, take your "trash" equip of the same type and fuse it in for a MINIMAL stat increase that would be infinite, but with a success rate that would decrease each time you succeed.
This add's a very powerful mechanic of choice in the sence you might fuse a gear to the point that it outweights the next tier gear. Would this break the economy? It would lower the amount of scraps generated, which I don't think would be that bad, it would actualy suggest that people sometimes go for a lower grade gear and just spam fusion on it, making it on par with a higher grade one. It would be a task to balance, but I don't think it would be that hard. Not that many systems that get affected by it.
3. Add an outside activity to do every day or two to break the monotone of action to advance.
An interesting idea I had was a daily "mini boss" that each player has to personaly kill each day. It would give a feeling much more epic that the regular battle and less that of an actualy boss fight, since this time it would be only 1. The reward could be a 15 minute personal 3x. So you can plan ahead when you wana hold enter for 15 mins and go do the daily boss. Can do the same thing for tradeskillers in the form of a ,for example, a special node to use up each day. The node could act either as a 3x resource buffer for as long as it lasts or a chest type thing to unlock the 15mins of 3x.
This daily system would give much more incentive to log in every day, do the daily and then do the grind to use it up and then CONTINUE the grind, since "if I started, might as well continue".
Another idea of the sorts, that I beleive the game vitaly needs : a minigame.
It can be anything from ingame poker to a game of checkers/Go to something simple like tetris. It should have a reward of either a daily bonus or a different type of character boost to use in the actual battling/tradeskilling. Could be a new gear type like a gamer badge, that you would constantly improve as you play these minigames to add start to your main one. Heck, I would even suggest putting such a game inside the battle/tradeskill system itself to make people be in the site the whole time playing. I do not think it would be a hard implementation, maybe the multiplayer style a bit more so, but not the sp style, heck, it would be a good practice of programming minigames for you, Stabzs
Conclusion:
The game is not rewarding the player with milestones often enough in the early game, causing an insanely long montone that would deter a lot of newer players and make some older ones start forgeting they were progressing in the first place. More so on the battle side, than the tradeskill style.
As remedy, dailies, minigames and more milestones would help make the game more interactive and varied. Implementation would take a while, but it's a, in my opinion, a very nice future goal to work towards in making the game bigger.
Thank you for your attention
Context:
I'm a level 19 player, having started around 1month ago and have only been doing battle, a little bit of tradeskilling, looked into guilds and played with the market. My knowledge on crafting is limited to the bits I read on the chat from other people, so take this more so as an observation from a new player who is really into game design.
Problem:
I am aware that the game is ment to be a very slow paced one, with extremely slow progression, to make the milestones of leveling feel very rewarding. That is all well and is an acceptable and fun style that can attract some types of players. However, I do beleive there is a pacing issue with it.
Mainly the problem stems from the fact that the player spends extreme amounts of time simply grinding the level up/ trade good until they reach the milestone to feel like they've "unlocked" something. The level-up is the main form of reward in any RPG and while I'm not saying it takes too long to level, I'm saying it takes too long to reach the 10 level milestone.
To veteran players this is no problem, they're used to it and they have more interaction with the game via the means of crafting and good selling. However this is simply untrue to a new player. From what I've noticed in this 1 month of playing is that I had to do something different that pick a quest and keep clicking "again" only 5 times in total. Once to get my level 11 gear, once to check out how guilds look and 3 times spent dismantling/selling. All in 1 month of gametime.
Is this too slow for a new player? Yes, extremely so, I can see a lot of people who have and will quit just because they won't feel like they've had anything different to do in time periods way too long. If the player doesn't have any kind of different interaction with the game than the grind in over a week, he will start losing motivation to reach that milestone. The time period is too long.
Suggested solutions:
Add more varied player interaction with the game in short terms. Something to constantly break the monotone and make the player feel like he is progressing at much shorter intervals than right now.
More specificaly:
1. Gear types that would get tier upgrades every 5 levels or even less. This can be a single piece or multiples. A very VERY cool feature that Aion added a few months ago was a Plume piece that would have to be refined for a cost to improve in stats. The refinery is near infinite and is only limited to funds. Each upgrade the chance to upgrade it again decreases. A similar system was employed in Uncharted Waters Online with ship fusion which leads to another suggestion :
2. Gear fusion.
Basicaly imagine you got your uber sword and a gazillion greens/blues/whites you dont need. You can sell em, you can dismantle em. Both are cool and all, but what if we did a 3rd type - fusion.
Basicaly you take your main equip, take your "trash" equip of the same type and fuse it in for a MINIMAL stat increase that would be infinite, but with a success rate that would decrease each time you succeed.
This add's a very powerful mechanic of choice in the sence you might fuse a gear to the point that it outweights the next tier gear. Would this break the economy? It would lower the amount of scraps generated, which I don't think would be that bad, it would actualy suggest that people sometimes go for a lower grade gear and just spam fusion on it, making it on par with a higher grade one. It would be a task to balance, but I don't think it would be that hard. Not that many systems that get affected by it.
3. Add an outside activity to do every day or two to break the monotone of action to advance.
An interesting idea I had was a daily "mini boss" that each player has to personaly kill each day. It would give a feeling much more epic that the regular battle and less that of an actualy boss fight, since this time it would be only 1. The reward could be a 15 minute personal 3x. So you can plan ahead when you wana hold enter for 15 mins and go do the daily boss. Can do the same thing for tradeskillers in the form of a ,for example, a special node to use up each day. The node could act either as a 3x resource buffer for as long as it lasts or a chest type thing to unlock the 15mins of 3x.
This daily system would give much more incentive to log in every day, do the daily and then do the grind to use it up and then CONTINUE the grind, since "if I started, might as well continue".
Another idea of the sorts, that I beleive the game vitaly needs : a minigame.
It can be anything from ingame poker to a game of checkers/Go to something simple like tetris. It should have a reward of either a daily bonus or a different type of character boost to use in the actual battling/tradeskilling. Could be a new gear type like a gamer badge, that you would constantly improve as you play these minigames to add start to your main one. Heck, I would even suggest putting such a game inside the battle/tradeskill system itself to make people be in the site the whole time playing. I do not think it would be a hard implementation, maybe the multiplayer style a bit more so, but not the sp style, heck, it would be a good practice of programming minigames for you, Stabzs
Conclusion:
The game is not rewarding the player with milestones often enough in the early game, causing an insanely long montone that would deter a lot of newer players and make some older ones start forgeting they were progressing in the first place. More so on the battle side, than the tradeskill style.
As remedy, dailies, minigames and more milestones would help make the game more interactive and varied. Implementation would take a while, but it's a, in my opinion, a very nice future goal to work towards in making the game bigger.
Thank you for your attention
