Make Planeshift easier to play?

[Maisent]

Thinking about most of this, what i think is funny, is that only people who have played for a while, half a year, or longer mabey, are the ones complaining about training their newb alts, while the new players who start the game, dont complain about anything other then crashes, lag, and things not implemented, and those are the things that are being worked on, sure a dev 'could' change the mobs stats/skills, pretty quikly, but there is preplanning, to it, to see what is reasonable, plus most of them have jobs and a family And with 6.0 coming out soon, or 5.5 whichever they wanna call it, im sure they would much rather meet the demands of new players, and implement skills, and places, rather then deal with monsters, which you dont seem to understand, are not in 'that' bad of shape.
SIMPLY PUT More skills, places, mobs, characters, lesslag, ect = more new players, who will most likely stay, if that means one or two people quit, so be it, what doesnt kill you makes you stronger.

Actually having more places, mobs and training skills will probably make OLD players stay. New players would probably quit because they have a hard time leveling up. Also, you are going  . IDC if they are planning for 6.0 or 5.5. There are already enough monsters as it is, The wilderness is big enough to get a newb lost for hours, more skills will encourage PLing for the oldies and make newbies quit the game because it is too complex-looking. I suppose less crashes would encourage noobs to stay, but what is really getting them to quit is how hard the start of the game is.


SIMPLY PUT Easier starting game = More people willing to go forward and challenge themselves once they get used to the game......... MORE place, mobs, trainable skills = more complex planeshift

[Maisent]

No Earowo what you don't get is that the Newbes go "Well lag will get fixed soon and other things will get implemented soon too, so I'll complain about that" But the other people who hate the longness of trying to get PP just pack up and leave. So really you just dug a massive hole because you said more noobs into PS well more noobs will come if being a noob is easier to train higher.

In most normal and well successful games and I doubt PS will have a future if they don't do what these other games do, is that being a noob is easy but then it gets harder to level up as you go higher in the levels... right?

That's just it who wants Pottery, Masonry, Glass Blowing, etc when they need to fix the problems now and move on once they are read to move on, not implement all this crap and find out they need to do all this re-balancing. While everyone leaves because they have better things to do, than spend a lifetime on PS everyday.

That's what i'm trying to point out, not everyone has the time to play PS for hours and hours. Right now the hardest part of the game is when you are starting out, I think that is wrong, It should be easier until they get used to the game...THEN it gets tougher. Noobs will NOT stay in a game for over 5 hours just getting 1 PP each kill, or getting 4k trias per hour, which btw is nothing.

PS: Earowo, I am NOT complaining. Did you see this isn't in the complaint section?

[Earowo]

I think thats funny too, I know a lot of gamers, smart and dumb, and i know a lot of people who are less of gamers, and more of, a once in a while kind of person, but either way, haveing a game with more places, quests, skills, ect would lead to more people becuase its what people call, more hours of gameplay. Currently, what PS calls the RP server, includes people who, Train, Quest, RP, and Explore, All at the same time.
Now this game has had the same 4 cities for a few years, and Training questing, rp'ing, and exploring can only go 'so' far on that. Eventually you run out of quests, eventually you run out of skills that benifit your character, eventually there is no place to explaore, and eventually there isnt anything to rp about other then drinking a beer, thats when you get bored and leave, or start over with an alt. With added content, that makes it take longer to get bored.

On topic, Sarva has talked about training an alt before [either that or it was marathal]
She, like me, concluded, that training form scratch, without help from any alts, is easily done, I've seen many many new players, content with mining, killling rats, kikiris, coamtis, clackers, andforest arangmas. from what i've seen they only ever complain about the rats.
But it is almost impossible for a new player to play more then a week, without being invited to a guild, or handed handouts.
The fact that you are playing an alt, means you are subconsiously, denying certain handouts, from things you know ooc'ly, so that you can acomplish an alt for some RP purpose [i assume you are doing it for rp -__- ]
But new players who still need to learn things, gladly accept help, from everybody, and the ones who join PS for RP to begin with, tend to let that influence their character.

[ncfbn]

What is this....I actually kind of agree with Maisent. This can only mean one thing...my opinion is incorrect!

[Maisent]

@ Earowo

1st pharagrph: you are talking long term , I am talking about RIGHT when a player starts to play the game. IDC if the cities they have have been around for ages, the noobs don't know that and they certainly wouldn't think the world is small unless they have actually put up with the ridiculous amount of hours needed to train. 

2nd paragraph: I'm on blackberry so I'm not sure what you wrote, but I think you said something about you and marathal both agreeing that it is super easy to train when a newb : some players may be satisfied with the usual coamti's and rats etc, but I think MOST new players will NOT spend HOURS of time to GAIN only a couple of thousands of trias. Why do you think PS bearly have any players ? Most I've seen this year was 60 ish. Its because the devs or whoever have made planeshift incredibly hard to play at the begining. When I was around 4 years ago there were many, many players onine and the maps were MUCH smaller, and there were LESS monsters, there was NO crafting, and magic was basically useless, and yet I ran into MANY newbies going around the wilds looking for hydlaa. See ? Its not about how short or long the game is, its about starting of the game, and I think nowadats its too difficult. Many years ago ,as I have said, there were so many newbs because planeshift was so basic and easy to play, now its just really complex and difficult.



To the person that said something about agreeing with me : don't post if you don't have anything nice to say.

[Vakachehk]

When I started I was scared to go to Hydlaa because the wilderness is so big, I was scared to also go to Hydlaa because I knew I would probably get lost there. I never thought it was too small I thought it was the opposite. But yes players coming from WoW or other huge RPGs will probably find PlaneShift a little small but not at the first moment of entering (not in the first 10 hours a game time in which Talad has said to me on IRC that most noobs stop playing within the first 10 hours of playing) but really I do think that balancing is far more important and crucial to the future of PS than adding in areas or other new things.

Just so you know Earowo it takes different devs to make new areas instead of ordinary devs. Now that you know my brother was an Art dev and he said it's like climbing Mt. Everest barefoot and nakid to get a map into PS because they are so fussy but so annyoing to work with, for example my brother made Dsar Kore he fully finished it and gave it to Talad to implement Talad goes, "Nahh change this, that and the other thing" about 100 times later it finally gets considered. That is why PlaneShift is lacking so many Art Devs and new areas are taking along time to get implemented, for example where's Amdeneir? Baldur was doing lots of work on it then Zwentholo now it's mostly Nikodemus and a little from LigH doing a wilderness map. Just so you know there has been more devs leave PlaneShift in the last year than in a McDonalds restaurant.

[Maisent]

When I first started, I was lucky enough to meet a friend of mine (IRL) IG, so he taught me all the stuff and where to go...But when he was offline I got lost, didn't know what to do and mostly went around Oja talking to people OOC in main.

[Earowo]

Why do you think PS bearly have any players ? Most I've seen this year was 60 ish. Its because the devs or whoever have made planeshift incredibly hard to play at the begining.

This is not neccisarily true, I have yet to meet anyone new, [that made it out of the tutorial] that quit becuase the game was too hard, how often they played varied, but they still ha no problem with the game. The lack of players has to do with PS being non-profit.
Becuase it is non-profit, the only advertisement they can really get, are websites of players, And i highly doubt any players websites, get a lot of hits, most of the time people find planeshift on accident, or becuase a friend told them about it.

for example where's Amdeneir? Baldur was doing lots of work on it then Zwentholo now it's mostly Nikodemus and a little from LigH doing a wilderness map.

I actually read the topic about amdeneir, from the first post in like 2005-2006, becuase i wanted to know more about it one day, and the real reason why it wasnt implemented, was becuase it was taking too long to creat the whole city, and they missed the due date, they are 'still' working on it, not becuase talad told them to change it, but becuase amdeneir is going to be huge!

[Sarras Volcae]

i agree with maisent

even if there are so many players that are able to easily level up, yet there are also many who find it difficult, there IS something wrong with the game. some players are luckier than others. some players don't join guilds. some players don't have hours to play every day. if PS wants more players, it must cater to everyone and all playing styles.

[Vakachehk]

i agree with maisent

even if there are so many players that are able to easily level up, yet there are also many who find it difficult, there IS something wrong with the game. some players are luckier than others. some players don't join guilds. some players don't have hours to play every day. if PS wants more players, it must cater to everyone and all playing styles.

  nicely put there Sarras! We're not saying that it has to be all perfectly balance and polished we are saying to make it easier... Simply put

@Earowo you don't get it, you wont meet them because they get in the game and go "oh stuff this it's to hard to play", they leave and they never come back, that why you don't meet them  . I have been told by Talad directly that with new players most of them quit within the first 10 hours of game play. There are a lot of new players that join up with PS I could get around 3 newish players to join KIC a week, if I tried hard and that's just on Enkis alone. I've heard Weltall tell me that Enki are only the 3rd most popular race (Human, Klyros, Enki, Dawrf, Elven/Kran) so there for around 12-14 new player a week. Probably most of them get stuck in the Tutorial.

[Avathius]

Planeshift needs to make it either:

1) cost nothing to level up
2) bring back the Gug mining spot
3) rework their entire gameplay

I would recommend #3

[Earowo]

I assume the bring back gug mining spot would mean put platinum back, but its not gone, its just in a different place, have fun finding it

[Sangwa]

I still think this could be better accomplished not by decreasing general difficulty (i.e. the time you take to max) but by decreasing the difficulty of the first levels. People like challenges, so they won't dig too much of a game where everyone maxes in a day, but they don't want to take a month each time they want to learn a new spell either. However if when they first play the game they can level fast and try new stuff with it (monsters, spells, etc.) then they'll get the momentum needed to overcome the much harder levels that will ensue.

Bringing back mines is, to me, a lazy solution to make earning tria easier. Minings already one of the best ways of making income, so instead of making it even more profitable, it'd be better if that happened in other activities.

[novacadian]

I still think this could be better accomplished not by decreasing general difficulty (i.e. the time you take to max) but by decreasing the difficulty of the first levels.

That seems like a good compromise Sangwa. It makes sense to me on an RP server that levelling is a slow pace. This seems to support a notion of long term play and lots of time to develop the character RP-wise while slowly advancing the skills and stats to match the development.

Much of the complaining seems to me to be from folks that have a picture of where the character is going to go and wants to get there instead of letting the character evolve through RP and other IC experience.

Your suggestion, Sangwa, would give new players time to settle down a little from PLing into RP and slow and steady character skills and stats development.

- Nova

[Maisent]

I still think this could be better accomplished not by decreasing general difficulty (i.e. the time you take to max) but by decreasing the difficulty of the first levels. People like challenges, so they won't dig too much of a game where everyone maxes in a day, but they don't want to take a month each time they want to learn a new spell either. However if when they first play the game they can level fast and try new stuff with it (monsters, spells, etc.) then they'll get the momentum needed to overcome the much harder levels that will ensue.

Bringing back mines is, to me, a lazy solution to make earning tria easier. Minings already one of the best ways of making income, so instead of making it even more profitable, it'd be better if that happened in other activities.

That'swhaat i'm trying to point out... Make the first few, starting moment, easier then eventually become harder when you get used to the gameplay