14.2 - New player changes

[Cosmik]

New player changes:

*Many people find the first levels and hours on Rubi-Ka difficult. This has never been the intention, thus we have reduced the penalty for dying in the very beginning. These are the new changes:

-No loss of XP from death until lvl 30

-No Resurrection Shock until lvl 25

-No loss of items until lvl 15


*The start-up First Aid and Treatment kits have had their charges drastically increased. They will now have 300 charges, so healing should be plentiful in the beginning.

[Tradomario]

Originally posted by Cosmik
New player changes:

-No loss of XP from death until lvl 30

-No Resurrection Shock until lvl 25

-No loss of items until lvl 15

hmm personally I think these are set too high. IMHO they should be: 10, 9 and 8

anyway...

tradomario the neut

[MrBunny]

set kinda low

personally... should be set at 200,199,198

[-Zagadka-]

/me chukles

Give them a month or two.

[GammelMann]

Personally I dont care

[_______________Intra]

I think this is the most insane change they could come up with.

yes it may stop people camping for tokens, but level 30??

level 6 was just fine.

some of us who dont have time to play took our time to get levels, now you are cutting our achievements up by allowing players to fly through the first levels without even thinking.

I can see groups of level 25s luring the likes of torin the ancient back to the rez terminal at the op and killing him because they have no rez effect, so what if he kills you? you re appear in the same spot and just keep on shooting

oh well

[__________Spacegipsy]

This is a total unnecessary change.
I've started new characters plenty times and there is really no need for those changes.

No loss of items?
What do you mean - you don't loose items anyway, unless in certain rare PvP situations, and a Lvl 15 will hardly get into those situations.
Or you loose items due to bugs (which happens more often) - so you'll eliminate the bugs for chars up to lvl 15? J/K.

Seriously.. those changes are not needed....
But I can see where they are coming from...

[-Zagadka-]

heh, token camping.

Anyone who WANTS to camp tokens at level 6 should be allowed to... it is their time they are wasting completely, now.

[Darkbane]

Well, I tend to agree that the levels are probably too high (10/15/20 would be better), but think that the idea is good. It may need a bit of checking out on test to see how exploitable it really is, but suspect that newbies killing high level mobs this way isn't very likely, damage vs regeneration and all that.

And the 'loss of items' thing likely refers to having to recover your inventory from reclaim, though they could have been clearer on that one...

[Vdpmeat]

Thinking back... I was no casual player when I first started AO, but was new to MMORPG's in general.

I seem to recall that it took me quite a while to get to level 20 or so, but I dont think I will feel cheated in any way if FC makes it easier now.

After learning the ins and outs of the game I can take a char to level 6 in one evening... 6 to 15 in the next one or 2.

This doesnt seem like a bad idea to me, lets the people that are really new to the game get a sense of accomplishment early on.

It does seem to be a bit high though... lvs 10, 15, 20 maybe.

[_____________DoItAll]

I understand some aspects of the game are quite difficult to master to the newbie (implants, etc..). But, Dear FC, a better game manual could be a nice solution....

The first 6 level zoom quite fast. So learning curve is steep. On the other hand, reroll is faster too!

Changing the newbie level? OK

But how high? I think I am an average player. It took me 13 hours of success and error to reach lvl 15. Well, If you didn't graps the principle of the game by them, you have a problem.

15 being the first 'title' threshold. I think it will be a better limit.

But beware, one day or another, baby have to quit his mother. What's better, quitting at lvl 6 with small failures to learn, or at lvl 30 and getting wacked.

FC probably need desesperatly more customers after the desastrous launch of an overall good game. But, no offense, trying to reach for players who need 30 lvl to understand the game is a risky bet.

I may appear elitist. But your apprenticeship period is also an rite of passage. Lowering the bar too much could induce players non mature enough to fit in the old player base. Only time will tell...

[Amanefo]

Originally posted by Cosmik
New player changes:

*The start-up First Aid and Treatment kits have had their charges drastically increased. They will now have 300 charges, so healing should be plentiful in the beginning.

Thanks for this change!!! It makes me laugthing for about 10 minutes now.

Don´t know if u change the amount they heal you up but if not, remember at lates at Lvl 3 they are completely useless !!!
Hmm lets see if i can sell them for horrible prices to a newbee ROFL

[____________Rockpitt]

I don't understand where this change is coming from. Have there really been that many complaints about rez effects and exp loss from pre-20th level players? If so, its got to be the worse case of whining I've ever seen. Someone call a whamublance.

[______________Daveos]

What are they Thinking.... This is way tooo High. It took me a little while to get to 30 maybe, but I enjoyed any minute of it.

If you are a new user start playing like the game and then get to lvl 30 and on your way to 31 you die and loose a lot of Exp because you didn't know any better, you are going to be very annoyed. If you have the mark lower it becomes just part of the game not a draw back from leveling.

[Arinia]

This is only going to make the pool of clueless level 50ish people larger.

You'd be surprised at level 50 how many people of all professions at the NW mine don't know what a HE is, enforcers who don't know what mongo is, people who don't understand to only attack one breed at a time, people who don't know not to attack a mezzed add, I could go on for days.

The idiot factor just went up a LOT. People can get to higher levels without their mistakes killing them off. What do we want, level 100 people running around who don't know how to play their class? (Oh wait, we already have that ) I mean.... MORE L100 people running around like idiots who don't know how to play their class.

[Bothead]

What I want to know is why token farming is evil? Cause it's obviously the Funcom stance, there can be no other explanation for this totally useless change; the first couple of weeks playing might be challenging to a new player, but hey, a game that does not challenge the mind isn't fun... simple as that.

The more features that are removed from AO (read: nerfs, OE penalties) I will just end up spending more time drowning my sorrows in the local bar.... see you all at The Cup

[Tech]

The reason for this change is quite simple I guess. Ao probably have a high amount of players that never pay after the first week, and this will help change that. Those of you that post at these boards made it by those levels the first time and have decided to stay. All the rest that played for four days and got fed up with dying and loosing all their xp don't.

This change will give more new players time to understand the gameplay. I can't see anything wrong with at all. How many times do an experienced player die between level 6 and 30 anyways? not many...

--sil

[______________Soccom]

This is a great change.
I have talked to a lot of people below lvl 20 that quit because they keep dying and feel they are getting no where. For a twink (like myself), this means nothing because I rarely die.. If at all.

I'm assuming the "no loss of items" change has to do with newbies wandering into 25% zones and not understanding what is going on, getting ganked by a like lvl (6 even), coat wearing, 50ql above their lvl implant/weapon, apprentice titled, 3 hit killing lamer =)
oh wait that can be me sometimes

We need to get a lot of fresh blood into AO with new ideas and a fresh outlook. =)

[____________andertec]

I played many characters from newbie to at least level 10, but sice we are talking first experience, Ill mention that it is very frustrating to loose a level earlier on, but it is just as frustrating to loose one higher up and I think a player that reaches level 30 and looses all his xp will see it as unsumontable because he never experienced it before!

A better solution would be to reduce the number of XP you loose based on levels. For example, a player can never loose more then 20% of his total XP. That number could be somthing that scaled with title so at level 15, you loose no more then 10%, at 50 you loose no more then 20% and so on.

Or it could be in the reverse order:
1-6 = 0% lost
7-15 = 5% lost
15-50 = 10% lost
50-100 = 20% lost
100-150 = 30% lost
150-180 = 40 % lost
180-200 = 50% lost

I can tell you that the only difference in frustration between a players level 10 who looses 10k xp and a player level 150 that looses 10 million is that the 150 player has more invested in the game and won t quit as easily.

Lastly, what kind of behavior do you observe from players when they die and loose over 50% of their xp? Ill tell you they leave xp mode in general and the team has to finish out without em!

So the solution you propose while tailoring the younger players does nothing to appease their frustration once they reach higher level. An yes, some high levels quit of frustration of loosing so much time!

Now you need to remeber, that we come here to have fun, not be frustrated over 2 hours of hard work going down in a second of inatention or a bug! (maybe have a profession have a save nano or something to make em worthwhile in missions)

Ander

[____________Rockpitt]

You got that right, Arinia.

What's this business about needing more time to learn gameplay? As it is you have 5 levels to learn gameplay. Doing solo missions up to 5th, believe it or not, teaches a person a lot about the game. The trouble is people want to come in, group and make 10th in a couple hours without bothering to learn that you need to upgrade your equipment along the way, buy nanos, etc. Then when they find themselves soloing and getting whacked by greenies, they cry "This game is too hard, I'm not getting anywhere, whaaaaa. Not fair, I quite!" What a bunch of babies. I've played a fixer, engineer, enforcer, soldier, agent and NT under the current system to a least level 30 (a friend of mine who agrees with me has played a soldier, NT, MP and Trader. So the only classes not covered is a Doc and MA). I started playing the first day of release. Not with any of these characters did I think, under the current system, it was too difficult to level. I might add too that I never found it necessary to stand in the middle of Trade and say "Im a 3rd level <class> and I need some one to give me money and equipment because I can't level."

This patch is totally unnecessary and diminishes the accomplishments of those who have gone before, just like the token=title level patch did to people who earned their collars one mission at a time. But hey, I'm sure I can make this patch work to my advantage. Honestly though, what a bunch a cry babies.