Friday with Means - August 28th, 2009 - The joys of jetlag

[Mastablasta]

Grind heavy
Poor balance (and I don't just mean in PVP)
Outdated engine
Primitive combat

Grind is being looked at.
There's not really poor balance in AO, there's only less knowledge of newbies vs veterans.
Engine is being upgraded.
Regular combat is pretty much the same as in every other MMO.

[Mistiz]

I suppose the graphics are a bit outdated for a p2p mmo, yeah.

Steep learning curve, hell yes. I have to, if i want to pvp at level 174, spend about 1.5 billion credits on my character. No way am i ever going to make that much. AO is all about money, money that you cannot simply cannot make at low levels. You need to get to 220ish and then farm the city. And only then can you make the toon again and truly enjoy the game. But those first 3-4 months of grinding on a very gimp character can make people quit.

I dont know why i didn't realize that before.

[heruharoth]

A lot of people quit before getting or having to get into any grinding. A lot of people also quit before realizing any unbalanced gameplay.

Primitive combat...if you mean having assault rifles that fire single shots every 3 seconds and actually shoot like an assault rifle every 40 seconds, I agree.

Otherwise I think AO's combat's kinda cool.

So I say again, main reason for not holding new players: the learning curve that leaves players simply clueless on several aspects of the game, so they have to use 3rd party maps, websites, tools, etc. New engine would be nice, but won't solve AO's problems.

edit:

If what Mistiz says about needing 1.5 billion credits to pvp at 174 is true....well, that's wrong on so many levels.

edit #2:

Means, how's the sponsors program coming? AO desperately needs that in my opinion.

[Klod8999]

Grind is being looked at.

True, they are looking at what name to pick, for a new night club in game.

There's not really poor balance in AO, there's only less knowledge of newbies vs veterans.

Yeah, there's that nuke that can bypass 30% cap rule, but it's newbies fault for not knowing how to get 35k HP on their nanomage shades.

Engine is being upgraded.

Aha. So you can finally throw away that 486 and get a new, shiny quad core based one, with two paired graphic cards and it will still run like crap. But, hey! It will look better.

Regular combat is pretty much the same as in every other MMO.

Yeah, because in every other MMO, you just press Q and go AFK.

[sjefstab]

Bai (Ps, real people spell it bye, but dont let that stop your QQ.)

ok tard, noted.

[Mistiz]

edit:

If what Mistiz says about needing 1.5 billion credits to pvp at 174 is true....well, that's wrong on so many levels.

edit #2:

Means, how's the sponsors program coming? AO desperately needs that in my opinion.

I wrong?

Lol.

Let's say you roll fixer. Without maxed CSS at tl5 you will not get the hawk on. You will have low attack rating and wont hit anyone. Without paying ~10 mil per ql 190ish symbs you will not have enough sense/agil to equip normal armor, people will hit you for way too much.

I could go on all day. You, buddy, make me laugh

[Eponyx]

We should be out there testing the stuff that's new this patch (or at least the past couple patches) not stuff that was added in V 1.00 (ie leveling..) just because Funcom doesn't want to level boost people without them first grinding Bugsy points or w/e.

Bugsy has nothing to do whit FC and you really don't need to have anything to do whit Bugsy if you don't want to.

It's their attitude that they owe us nothing and the fact that WE PAY THEM to test that makes people only want to jump in for a sneak peak instead of stick around and actually help.

No one keeps you from using an Fr00b account on test, you might miss out on some of the stuff but the is what you choose or not choose to do.

I am not sorry for my stand point or that I am not selfless enough to test. I want AO to succeed; I want the population to bloom and things to come out stable and fair. But none of this is possible for us to do without Funcom's help.

And I agree we need more help from Funcom at the moment the help we get is basically what we create ourselves and unfortunately that is just isn't good enough.

Disclaimer: obvious enough this is of course my personal thoughts and has nothing to do whit what anyone in FC or ARK, excluding myself, thinks.

[heruharoth]

I wrong?

Lol.

Let's say you roll fixer. Without maxed CSS at tl5 you will not get the hawk on. You will have low attack rating and wont hit anyone. Without paying ~10 mil per ql 190ish symbs you will not have enough sense/agil to equip normal armor, people will hit you for way too much.

I could go on all day. You, buddy, make me laugh

I meant that the fact that people need all that money was wrong, not that YOU were wrong...geez. I said "if what mistiz said is true" because I've never been close to that level.

Here I was thinking you shared my views on the learning curve.

[Mekh]

...snip...
Wal of text
...snip...

Agree 100% about each and every little detail explained there.

[Saetos]

No one keeps you from using an Fr00b account on test, you might miss out on some of the stuff but the is what you choose or not choose to do.

So you can test for free and test about 2% of the content coming out in the next patch?

Most of the things you want us to test today is for paid content and is very tricky.

Haven't been on test in awhile so I don't know if it already works this way... but,
What should happen:
1) x GMs ask for x people to test out abc playfield or xyz weapon or whatever.
2) Players meet up with GMs in a good testing area (mobs for weapons, playfield for... well new playfields). If they're testing something like nanos or nanoeffects they can just ask for results instead of requiring a meeting spot.
3) If required, GMs can adjust the level of volunteers and/or give them decent equipment.
4) If testing a playfield, players are told by GMs what to do, give them a bit of the lowdown on the playfield, and supervise them and get notes from what they see and what feedback they get from the players.
5) Players can then go back to their duties with some firsthand knowledge of a playfield that they got to see first, giving them a little advantage

[PhoenixOfAges]

I think the reason AO has so little players is this: it leaves new players clueless.

Which is why the new player experience is supposedly going to be looked over in time from what I remember. Likely still lots of time to toss ideas into the hat as how to improve things.

[Technogen]

You know I dont get that "Leaves new players so clueless" bit, nothing has been removed since the 2005 froob invasion, things have been added actually. So why was it that back in 05 thousands of people were able to figure out the game and take part in it, but now in 09 they cant?

[heruharoth]

With time and effort you can figure this game out. I'm just saying that the way it is now, the number of players not staying in the game because of how hard they find it, is lower that the number of players that stay because they like how challenging it is.

Kudos to the players that came before me and stayed, even when much less 3rd party help was available at the time, I imagine. If my old ATI graphic card didnt have some bug with AO, I would've become a regular since 2007, and would've loved it, I'm sure.

If you want to attract more customers that you do now, though, I still think smoothing down the learning curve would help..."Clueless" was perhaps an overstatement, but still. Find me a game where newbs have it so tough.

p.s.:

And heck, four years later, there's a lot more MMO's out there now, a lot more free ones, WoW is now something you hear about at least once a week, there's more casual gamers out there now, the average age of a gamer has lowered, graphics have become, sadly, more important than ever, and people sometimes are too lazy to put effort into a less-known game in order to have fun, so they give in into what the masses are already playing, and they have at least a little fun. All these being reasons why maybe, even if AO is just as tough as it was in 2005, less people find the time, or will, to commit to it today.

[drainbamage]

You know I dont get that "Leaves new players so clueless" bit, nothing has been removed since the 2005 froob invasion, things have been added actually. So why was it that back in 05 thousands of people were able to figure out the game and take part in it, but now in 09 they cant?

I think the learning curve talk is highly exaggerated. It didn't take me long to pick up the game.

The things I posted earlier are the main reasons I don't recommend this game to anyone I know.

[Tazalanche]

the average age of a gamer has lowered

It has? Everything I have read about that subject over the last 5 years has stated the exact opposite. If you were to use the first 3 links as examples by date listed, 2004=29, 2006=33, 2008=35.

The ESA (US based, entertainment software association) stated the following:
Industry Facts
America's entertainment software industry creates a wide array of computer and video games to meet the demands and tastes of audiences as diverse as our nation's population. Today's gamers include millions of Americans of all ages and backgrounds. In fact, more than two-thirds of all American households play games. This vast audience is fueling the growth of this multi-billion dollar industry and bringing jobs to communities across the nation. Below is a list of the top 10 entertainment software industry facts:

1. U.S. computer and video game software sales grew 22.9 percent in 2008 to $11.7 billion – more than quadrupling industry software sales since 1996.
2. Sixty-eight percent of American households play computer or video games.
3. The average game player is 35 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.
4. The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 39 years old.
5. Forty percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (34 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent).
6. In 2009, 25 percent of Americans over the age of 50 play video games, an increase from nine percent in 1999.
7. Thirty-seven percent of heads of households play games on a wireless device, such as a cell phone or PDA, up from 20 percent in 2002.
8. Eighty-four percent of all games sold in 2008 were rated "E" for Everyone, "T" for Teen, or "E10+" for Everyone 10+. For more information on game ratings, please see www.esrb.org.
9. Ninety-two percent of game players under the age of 18 report that their parents are present when they purchase or rent games.
10. Sixty-three percent of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives.




Older gamers with less time on their hands = more gamers insisting on more casual (or over simplified) games.
Younger gamers suffering from impatience (falsely diagnosed as ADD) = more gamers insisting on more over simplified games.
See the trend?

If you were to take a game like the original Zelda or Super Mario Bros., increase the graphics to today's standards & change the title, people would complain that they were too hard & took too long.

[PhoenixOfAges]

You know I dont get that "Leaves new players so clueless" bit, nothing has been removed since the 2005 froob invasion, things have been added actually. So why was it that back in 05 thousands of people were able to figure out the game and take part in it, but now in 09 they cant?

The more time passes the more painfully obvious everything needs to be. I liked it when implants and all the rest of it dropped on newbie island. I spent some time now and then to figure things out and went from there.

There are some things they could do to improve some aspects like to update /help and make people more aware of it. The BS sign-up window help window last I looked (which was not that long ago) still included info on how you could sign up as a team. That option though was removed ages ago. Updating stuff like that would be good. Making the mission key copier shift+right click usable like other trade skills would be helpful. Even though it says to just right click it on the key in the description I've had to tell various people that after they claim it doesn't work.

------
(Referring to things from heruharoth's earlier post.)

All too often though I've seen people ask how do I do/use this or what not and it says how right in the description of the item or quest which they do know how to look at. Like in the sided shoulder pads quest mentioned in that post it does tell you where to go to find each mob. Not exactly where to go but the info has been updated to tell you the general area you're to go now. From there you're expected to search in that area and/or ask others for help. With procs read the descriptions and try them out paying attention to their functions plus ask others what the procs are like.

People were expected to explore, try things out, talk to NPCs and other players. The third party maps spell out where everything is and other things taking away the exploring aspect. AO Universe quest guides so long as they have no errors are good but spell out exactly what to do. Some are too ready to rely on them without trying things on their own as they're in a rush. The DB sites spell out every last detail of an item so people just look there rather than trying it out or asking around.

When doing the Scheol garden key quest the NPCs tell you how to make PBs ready to spawn, how to spawn them and about patterns. You can go into Scheol without the quest at lvl 90 and it's usually not till around then you'd want to start replacing more of your imps with symbs. I always try to do the garden key quest once I go in a new area and that was likely FC's thinking as well. When I first went past Nasc I noticed no symbs were dropping from named mobs. So I asked people in game if symbs only came from PBs past Nasc and knew of PBs as people talked of them now and then.

------

While some things could be done to improve some things they can take things too far to dumb things down too much. Take newbie isl as it was not that far back. Alien weapons and bio clumps were removed from the drop table as they "confused" newbies so aliens dropped nothing. You used to be able to get all sorts of random items from regular mobs, implants, clusters, junk armour, rings, bonus rings, gems, robot junk, parts for the sided shoulder pads quest, "take me to the shop," etc... Then they stripped everything not related to newbie island quests. The dyna bosses really were dyna bosses as they glowed, dropped various dyna boss loot and so forth. Then they yanked all that so they only dropped junk armour.

All that was so as to not confused newbies but then they go to the mainland where everything drops all sorts of things. So mobs went from dropping nothing to next to nothing to dropping lots of stuff. More recently they reintroduced various drops to newbie island mobs. Now it may be a bit better as mobs drop some more stuff but not quite as much as off the island so it's not as much of a shock as it was before.

[Ayria]

So you can test for free and test about 2% of the content coming out in the next patch?

That's a big part of it, it's basically what makes it that we have to pay to test because they add so little content these days that is accessible to Froobs; with good reason of course. But it's counterproductive to charge people for testing as I've stated. No other game or product (that I know of) makes you pay in order to beta test. Now this is not to say that others don't exist that use the same business model as TestLive but I'm sure they get a similar rash of criticism and neglect.

You know I dont get that "Leaves new players so clueless" bit, nothing has been removed since the 2005 froob invasion, things have been added actually. So why was it that back in 05 thousands of people were able to figure out the game and take part in it, but now in 09 they cant?

You can thank what we can basically call the "silver platter generation". It infects more then just video games, permeating through society in the form of quick and easy solutions and the "whine and thou shall receive" philosophy that leads to many of the more hilarious American law suits...

This idea that we shouldn't discipline our children cause it may be construed as abuse or that neglect is only a hop skip and a jump away from not spoiled ****ing rotten. (This of course has a lifelong effect on their view of life)

It all boils down to this idea that (focusing on the topic of games) playing a game shouldn't be about grasping a learning curve but instantly being rewarded for your actions despite that the former has the obvious greater return of satisfaction. So long as you get the neat toy you wanted it doesn't matter what all that button mashing that gets confused for skill () is.

Conversely a lot can still be done to improve the beginning of the game. There is a gap between spoiled and aided and while it may be hard for some to define such a line it exists none the less. Helping people with a tough problem (which can be because its complicated or just obscure) shouldn't be seen as a bad thing, it is only when we start helping them with things that are obvious or simple that we should begin to be concerned.

ie. If we have to tell them that Q starts attacking is one thing because it's not that way in most games, if we have to start telling them that WASD moves their character then we have to worry.

I still see nowhere in game that it explains what the grey pips turning red mean on your targets health bar are for. Do you think a noob is going to notice that or think it's prevalent? Think they're gona just go "OH that's to tell me I'm in weapons range!". Eh, probably not, it's quite obscure and the game makes no reference to it.

My standpoint when they nerfed newb island was that they should have given answers instead of removing the need for a question.

TL;DR: Answering a question is never a bad thing, we only start pulling out the silverware when we start removing the need for questions.

[heruharoth]

Older gamers with less time on their hands = more gamers insisting on more casual (or over simplified) games.
Younger gamers suffering from impatience (falsely diagnosed as ADD) = more gamers insisting on more over simplified games.
See the trend?

Alright, I didn't exactly research that one about the age of players. It was my impression though. (Hello Kitty MMO? wtf? lot of people complaining about a big part of WoW population being kids when they want more serious experiences...etc). It seems you have, and I'll admit I was wrong about it. You made your point

But the part I quoted seems to agree with the last part of my post...overall, that trend you talk about has the effect of AO (although not being much harder to get into than in 2005) having less chances of finding and holding new players now than it was 4 years ago.

I don't want this game to become easy...I would like it to be easier on the new guys, so the tough parts of the learning curve come AFTER they see the potential for fun in the game, and so, feel it's worth the effort...

The sponsors program is a great idea to do this, since it would take some work off the developers' backs...

[Noxira]

The previously mentioned study only focused on the US markets though. Most of the people buying WoW game time cards at my store are kids under the age of 15, though it could be just because adults can simply pay with their credit cards.

Children have loved playing video games ever since they came into existence, that's for sure. Now they just get access to games targeted for older audiences earlier, some definitely out of peer pressure (if I got 5 cents for every time I hear <14 year olds boasting about having played GTA4 I would have an endless supply of money for AO subscriptions). While AO needs to be much more accessible, I'd really prefer for it to remain a game for older (over 15) players, kind of like EVE now is.

[Amosco]

I think the reason AO has so little players is this: it leaves new players clueless.

Here are a few examples of "how the heck was I supposed to know that?!" Moments I had starting out (about 3 months ago):

- What possible reason would I have to visit that outpost in the Lush Fields if I didnt already know about the shoulderpad quest, from, guess what, a 3rd party website?

- Symbiants...where on rubi-ka or the shadowlands does someone explain how to make them? Ergo gives some vague hints, but...again, we are forced to alt-tab, or play in a window, for the info we need. :X

- I farmed the elysium dynas that were listed as pocket bosses (I didnt know where that name came from then, but ok, on I went, using a map from....another 3rd party.) in aopocket, waiting for symbiants to drop, just like they did in Nascence. But all I kept finding was these freaking patterns, which I thought would be part of some recipe; i left them on the bodies, always. I must've found like 30 before I thought something was odd and googled "ao symbiants", which would lead to the ao universe page about how to make them, where I realized........this was by far the most frustrating bit.

Your best reason to focus on trying to bring more players into the game? It manages to be a problem, an effect of other problems, and a cause to many other problems.

Please, Funcom -- focus on making this game easier on newcomers, because a new engine wont make them stay. I love AO for its uniqueness. I wish it the best, and the recognition it truly deserves.

I'll be honest, these issues are the very reason I've mostly stopped playing the game, and I've been paying for an account since late 2002. Every time a new patch comes out there is more stuff that I have to wait for a writeup on a fan page to learn how to do or where to go. And after I read about it, I discover I'm going to need six or twelve or more people to help me do whatever the new content is, either that or be prepared to spend 3+ hours trying to do whatever content was added.

AO does NOT do a good job of pointing you in the right directions inside the game. And if you don't know what websites to look at you will NEVER be able to get very far, and that's just sad. I remember when I was starting out in the game, I found two Nullity Sphere Instruction Discs and one Grid Armor Disc in missions (and sold them as shop food) before anyone told me that they were valuable and I could have sold them for a few million creds (this was back in the day when they were still valuable, of course). And as a new player, credits are INCREDIBLY valuable and hard to come by. In fact, just giving new players better ways to make credits would probably ease a third of their problems getting into the game.

The game needs a real revamp from the bottom up if there is any hope to hold onto new players (and veterans like me, for that matter).