compilation: new players early experience frustrations

PuckInmortali

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Nov 8, 2021
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I'm torn on this a bit--what I mean is that I see both sides to some extent. On one hand, a good tutorial experience is very important in any game, especially as one as relatively complex as MO2. On the other, part of the sandbox experience is discovering things for yourself. A complex game is, well, complex, and the practicality of including adequate instruction seems prohibitively challenging.

Either way, I suspect that the voices of the streamlined, instanced-MMO crowd will whinge and denounce from their virtual pulpits, no matter what SV does or doesn't do. If anyone comes to MO2 expecting a convenience theme park like the last half dozen or so they played, they have truly wandered into the wrong section of the internet, and no amount of tutorial will save them. Perhaps, SV simply need a disclaimer stating, "Mortal Online 2 is not WoW. You will need to discover and learn things outside of rotations and boss mechanics, and other people can effect your gameplay. Enter at your own risk."

All this being said, more information provided up front for the new player is a good thing, especially where character creation is concerned.
 

mortalsn

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May 10, 2021
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So sorry to hear you had a bad time.
It may comfort you to know that the basic concept anf first version of Haven was developed for MO1.
Just be grateful you're out of it.

You misunderstand. I mean the combat and crafting tutorials, not Haven itself. Also I didn't say that I had a bad time (?!)
 
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Raknor

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Sep 14, 2021
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Hyllspeia
MAKE THE GAME FUN ONCE YOU FIGURE IT OUT.

ok... then keep the 100x level speed at release because there is nothing fun about a reroll when all the noobs find out weeks/months in they have to reroll to play half-decently. Especially if they never had a chance of getting it right in the first place without combing trough 3rd party guides on what the hell those stats do.
 
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Runaljod

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Jan 3, 2021
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They could raise DEX to ~75 at creation and put a lock on it being lowered, with a informative message if you unlock it. Also agree with movement skills being somewhat leveled off the rip.
 

Backyard Employee

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Oct 30, 2021
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I have to say being a player who played MO1 who didn't really have a proper tutorial, you were definitely thrown to the wolves and just expected to learn or quit. Now while I stuck it out because I really loved the concept of the game and wanted to get better there are some things that really, really bothered me about the old tutorial such as giving you random skill points to carry out the tutorials wishes but then never informing the player that they need those skill points to do other things.

It also gave a false impression of how a lot of stuff works. Haven in MO1 on the other hand was actually really fun and brilliant in my opinion, and I'm not even a PvE player. I actually think it did a lot better job at introducing the game.

I think players need to be taught a lot of basic concepts from the get go otherwise players will quit not because of getting killed, but because they don't understand -why- they are being killed.. or why something doesn't work the way they think it does.

A lot of people like many above me said don't understand the character creation system at all. Some people will not realize that with PvP being at the core of the game (even though a lot of people try to shut that down and say it is not) speed is the most important thing here.. even if you're just running away all the time. Honestly, I think they should just tie speed to age and repurpose dexterity for something else entirely. Because people really do not associate dexterity with how fast you can move.

If you even pull up a definition of it, it relates to ones ability to perform tasks with their hands.

It's a lot easier to explain to a player that being young and spry makes you fast and strong, but being old makes you slow and wise (ideal for magic) and dexterity perhaps can be a new attribute that opens up a play style for a different style of fighters (Like in MO1 dex. fighters who relied on weakspots and were typically fast) perhaps here in MO2 they can allow dexterity to speed up weapon swings, determine weakspot chance, etc.

I know Star Vault would never do it but yeah.
 
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Sklore

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Nov 26, 2021
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char creation should have a few pree defiend builds in stats.. like
- fastfighter
- slow fighter
-mage
and so on

that people can select, and then modify a little..

Also explain that Dex = movement.. I always add as much dex as i can on a build. becaus moving around slow, is painfull to play

This would make the character creation so much more enjoyable. Leave the full custom build there for people who know how to use it but for us newbs have a selection of basic premades and an explanation of the role they usually play. I spent hours searching for stuff on character creation last night and I'm honestly so confused. All the guides direct you to pick stat's that I can't seem to select and there seems to be alot of attention to how fat I am.
 
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bbihah

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Jul 10, 2020
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There definitely should be some default builds that show off what some of the reasonable (max)stat expectations of a build should look like.
Coming into the game with absolutely 0 reference of what a good number is to aim for, and for what reason is very punishing.
 

Gulith

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Apr 5, 2021
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and each time i see a new streamer, new at the game ... they always pest about zero info about stats in character creation ; they hover their mouse cursor over stats on the right, not knowing they should do it on the left part where stat caps are.
who can guess that dexterity (literally 'the ability to use your hands') is determining your move speed?
 

MolagAmur

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Jul 15, 2020
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I've said this 100 times, but they should rework dex and movement speed and just make your character run their max speed depending on your clades.

It would create a more enjoyable early game experience for new players and potentially create new builds depending on what they did with dex other than weakspot. Complaints of movement speed on newly created characters have been around since early MO1. It doesn't feel good for anybody to have low dex. What gameplay benefit does it give when everyone maxes dex anyway (except fat mages but thats another problem in itself).

Of course you have to change up how many max attribute points we have with the change.
 
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MolagAmur

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Jul 15, 2020
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that's old skool dnd shite.


not saying that it's common knowledge, cuz y'know time passes and all, but that's pretty standard fare. I'm prol just a rpg nerd. I guess fps kids coming in would be like ???
I don't blame new players for overlooking that dexterity increases your movement speed. Yeah it tells you, but still. I can't think of any other game in fairly recent history where dexterity determines your movement speed.
 

Najwalaylah

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May 28, 2020
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37.76655478735988, -122.48572468757628
not saying that it's common knowledge, cuz y'know time passes and all, but that's pretty standard fare. I'm prol just a rpg nerd. I guess fps kids coming in would be like ???
There's a word for it, don't know why it's not being used here in Mortal Games (or elsewhere): agility.

You can be very dextrous and not very agile, so the difference is real. Maybe the world of gaming would crumble if both of those were standard attribute names, instead of just one.
Maybe it deserves to crumble.
 

fleebness

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Nov 28, 2021
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Germantown, MD, USA
Alrighty... I'm a new player, so perhaps I can offer some insights, at least from my perspective. I intend for any criticisms I offer as constructive, not outright bitching.

Firstly, player retention involves a combination of expectation, delivery, and figuring out the right combination of challenge to keep the game intriguing without being either dull or impossible. I suspect we could all agree on this.

So... expectation: This game attracted me through its promise of a deep set of mechanics. Everything from the professional to the active skills offers a promise of a deep set of mechanics that I can explore. Where we already have plenty of RPGs from which to choose, finding something to differentiate your RPG from any others strikes me as important... and this game attracted me via its promise for depth.

But... can you explore those deep mechanics? You get a single character per account with which to explore the deep set of mechanics this game has to offer, with no reasonable way to shift from one build to another. This breaks expectations: you'd expect a game with deep mechanics to offer some means by which one may explore those mechanics without completely nuking a character to do so... unless... all characters are extremely mortal anyway (e.g. eventually even a successful character ages out), where the accumulation of gear/skills/attributes/whatever isn't such a chore that one can't accomplish their build goals with a reasonable amount of effort, meaning you just push your character as far as it can go until its inevitable demise, then explore something else... kind of like a hybrid rogue-like game. Hybrid, because your character doesn't perma-die when killed in combat or the like, but rogue-like in that, eventually, it will age out.

But, from everything I've read so far, people invest effort acquiring whatever their character gains, and would be loath to toss away that effort to explore something else... yet that's you're only alternative. So that's a put-off.

This said, it takes very little time to get to 100 in most of the skills, from what I can tell. I don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand, that plays into the whole 'explore the mechanics' thing I mentioned earlier; don't like where you went? Delete the character and try something else... who cares, you can just level up what you want in a few hours. Except all the gold, etc. that you spent effort on evaporates. But then if it didn't matter, I wouldn't care, right? I haven't played long enough to know for myself how attached I'd get to my acquisitions, so I can't say, but it's something that makes me wonder. And it will make other new players wonder as well.

But, on the other hand, in some ways it makes the game too easy. You don't feel as invested in the character. I guess that's the thing for me... I'd like to feel invested in the character, but I fear doing so sacrifices an ability to explore what this game offers. That's... not great.

I very much enjoy the directional blocking and directional attacking in melee fighting. That's a delightful system. It offers a sense of accomplishment that goes beyond button-smashing, when you read your adversary's tell to work out the correct block, or maybe parry into a riposte. I do enjoy the possibility that a less-skilled player with better gear could be undermined by a skilled player with lesser gear. And I'm intrigued about how difficult this mechanic becomes in the heat of battle, as you combine dodging with blocking.

Not sure about the magic system yet. I've only grazed this so far. I like that one has to learn the system... magic should offer some mystery, right? But I read all this stuff about 'fat mages', etc. and wonder if the magic system offers any real sense of depth in its mechanics at all. I grow concerned that I'd start to explore this, discover it isn't as well-conceived as the melee fighting or the ranged fighting, and get annoyed by the waste of time. To me, depth in magic suggests exploring alternative ways to take down an opponent that can offer surprise. For example, in a dungeon setting with a group of co-operating players, the mage might cast a spell on enemies that slow movement, allowing the others to take them down more easily. Or maybe the mage offers illumination that works only for the party members but not for others outside the party, thus providing an advantage. The mage could have some direct damage abilities, but even these could work in subtle ways that could build on top of each other... first, apply something that causes an opponent to itch, then apply another spell that helps the seeds of that itch grow to some kind of fungus infection that leads to pain. Then another spell could light the fungus infection on fire, burning the opponents with serious, nasty damage. But... no... I don't get the sense it's as subtle as this, for a combat situation. Instead, I get the sense that one learns spells, channels the spell with the hopes of the RPG preventing an interruption or a fumbling of the spell (with some modifiers that reduce or increase the likelihood of this happening), followed by the execution of the spell on the target. Eh, maybe I'd appreciate it more as I get into it, I dunno... I really hope so.

I haven't played around with pets, but it looks promising to me, as I read the in-game material on it.

Yeah, this game has a rough learning curve, but I don't mind that. I do have concerns that one can't effectively learn this game via trial and error that easily... I personally don't like having to go outside of the game to read about how the game works. I would prefer to figure it out from within the game, either via trial and error, or by in-game cues.
 

Gulith

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Apr 5, 2021
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@fleebness
But... can you explore those deep mechanics? You get a single character per account with which to explore the deep set of mechanics this game has to offer, with no reasonable way to shift from one build to another.
yes you can, but it would involve changing direction with the same character.
you want to try armor crafting instead of weapon crafting?
lower your weapon crafting skills : you won't loose all the secondary skill progress.
and try armor crafting.
i recommend you to make a human or an alvarin for your first character, so you can have enough stat points to make hybrid builds, and then try a little bit of everything at the same time ... and then decide to specialize or stay a jack of all trade.
minmaxed stuff is a luxury for rich people with multiple accounts.
min-maxing is quite overrated in this game, player skills and players choices matters way more than 10-20% more damage.
therfore you should avoid thrusar & oghmir build for starters (one can't do magic, the other can't do hybrids).
 

bbihah

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Jul 10, 2020
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The fact that dex doesn't impact things like swinging, drawing bows and riding horses in any way shape or form is what really grinds my gears.
 

fleebness

New member
Nov 28, 2021
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Germantown, MD, USA
@Gulith

I concluded as much, and trashed the Oghmire character I started for a human, since I'm more prone to trying things, and can see that Oghmire characters seem ... too focused for that. I think I will prefer the new character I started anyway.

Interesting about not losing the secondary skill progress. I wasn't aware of that.

I won't belabor the issue further here... I know the forum already has about 6 pages elsewhere discussing this issue, and this thread is meant to focus on new player retention, so if I want to jump into such a discussion, i can go there. But hopefully the devs notice that new players do notice things like this, and it could impact retention. Hopefully they have a plan that can balance everyone's concern without breaking their vision.

@MolagAmur

I figured the skill gain had to be accelerated for beta (gives one a chance to sample a quite a bit for now, so it's an advantage for testing if anything is overpowered). So, we can feel invested in whatever we build in a character. That's good. It's going to be an interesting balance, to be sure, between investment and experiment... hopefully, the devs figure out a good balance.
 
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Medallurgy

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Nov 24, 2021
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You have roughly 2 hours to capture a new players interest in a game. If the player base cares about player retention, the first 2 hours of playtime need to be engaging, memorable, and fun. Very few people like full loot pvp mmos, so retaining those that do is important. If the first few hours of gameplay feel clunky, the target audience may just go back to playing Mordhau or some other combat game.


Expecting a new player to look up forum posts to figure out basic tasks is not usable design. There needs to be a lot more tutorials in haven. They do not need to be mandatory, just have them available as options. Say something like:

"There are endless ways to play the game. Here are the some of the branches and possibilities. Follow the tutorials that interest you. Experiment and have fun."

Then have melee combat, archery, magic, taming, armor crafting, weapon crafting, alchemy, butchering . Having people go off game to learn how to play your game is not great. If you just make the player read a block of text they will ignore it most of the time.

Also explain more about how skill points work and how you will need to specialize your combat path and crafting path.

Managing new player expectations is important.
 
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