If I could make one wish for the future..

[nils]

Let me start by applauding any wizard creating content for us to enjoy. Thank you, your work is appreciated, and what I’m about to write doesn’t change that one bit.

*cracks fingers*

It is publicly stated that the game needs fresh blood in order to survive. I think there’s a lot of truth in this statement, although leaning on nostalgia and returning legends shouldn’t be dismissed as a great source of players, but I digress. When I look at the latest additions to the realm - the dunland area, the thanar cathedral and the saurian caves there’s one common denominator that is in direct opposition to the above-mentioned public statement.

“But Nils, those are great areas! I practically live there!” you say? Aye, they’re pretty great and I enjoy my time there too, but do you know who doesn’t? New blood, fresh players.

Say an experienced player wishes to interact with a fresh one. Maybe an attempt to impress him or her with his/her guild’s prowess, size or whatever else kids brag about these days. Likewise, one could simply just attempt to realize a desire to fraternize, fornicate or sow seeds for something more sinister down the road. No matter the motivation, taking newbies out on a hunt for an hour or two of turbo-boosted experience is something we’ve all done and hopefully at some point in our own career, been lucky enough to have partaken in.

Going on a hunt (or let’s call it what it is – grinding) is a fact of life in Genesis, and taking new ones along can be rewarding in and of itself, but while routine for the experienced player, it might be the very deed that made a new one return the next day instead of going back to a life of graphics. The mob he was unable to kill to complete a quest is suddenly killable. His mental stats might have improved just enough to max skill in swim or climb, subsequently enabling him or her to progress further in a quest previously failed. Thanks to the experience gained and maybe even the money donated after, the new player can actually begin to successfully grind sparkle orcs on his or her own and thus take strides towards becoming an active member of our weird little community - just like we want, and need.

Knowing this, I have to question the fact that many of the new additions to the game have combat mechanics made to specifically eliminate “taking newbies along”. The areas are made "newbie unfriendly" by having the mobs aggressively and consistently attacking the smallest one in the team. There are other grinds that have worked that way for decades, sure, but with eyes towards the future:

*Do we need to make newbie un-friendly content?
*Can content deemed newbie un-friendly be made newbie friendly?

I write this here because I’m sure if I asked Cherek about it directly he’d say it’s up to whoever made the area. So, if you feel like I struck a nerve and you are indeed a Liege of a domain and enjoy full autonomy, my one wish for the future is that you enable those of us who sometimes take new players along, to do so in a way that won’t kill our new players on the spot. You do this by taking away target-switching mechanics from your domain.

Thanks


Addendum: I realize that what I am suggesting is “making the game easier” and that one could say that what I’m really asking is if I can take newbies with me on my daily grind and benefit from a low team average. And you’d be right – but is that really a bad thing? Gaining any real experience - since the last adjustments to combat - has become an exercise in futility anyway, so whatever benefit comes my way is negligible compared to what is theoretically being kept from new players anyway.

[Drazson]

Having been the legend with a couple of myths and being unable to go to the cathedral or having the team skip it for me is a bit eh, and it adds to the game.
Yet, I think you're right. the newbie-tagalong is generally more important.
However, I do wonder which other locations there might be really when you can already do mithas, GK, CA, idk about ents, shaws, etc etc.

An interesting topic!

[Tapakah]

I wonder if the Sparkle Orc camp is the type of the area being talked about. What level of NPCs are you looking? I understand that non-aggression is key, but the smaller people can't attack large mobs anyways.

[Draugor]

I wonder if the Sparkle Orc camp is the type of the area being talked about. What level of NPCs are you looking? I understand that non-aggression is key, but the smaller people can't attack large mobs anyways.

Quite a few mobs are agressive and just attack everyone when you enter, especially in mythgrinders, I imagine Nils sees no reason to go kill waterkrougs with them. Hell, you cant even walk past the plains in Krynn if you're goblin and the knights have them cause you will get attacked instantly no matter size, goblins have that drawback in quite some places

[Drazson]

I can only think of cathedral, terel trolls and dunlendings off the top of my head. Cathedral is so much of a top end that it's not really an issue I assume, TT has GK and dark elves close by and dunlendings are not popular but still better to just do shaws or CA.

Sparkle orcs are not the kind of NPCs being discussed, I don't think. Specifically top-tier grinders so that taking a newbie along comes at no xp cost, assuming that the bit of time lost due to their newbishness and the xp boost from teaming balance eachother out very roughly.

[Chanele]

Edited

[Thalric]

I guess one needs to choose between hardcore xp grinding or teaching youngsters the ropes.

This is another branch of the "best of every situation", as the posts about all the best weapons also just so happen to be non-breaking.

Choosing is such an interesting thing.

[Tapakah]

Sparkle orcs are not the kind of NPCs being discussed, I don't think. Specifically top-tier grinders so that taking a newbie along comes at no xp cost, assuming that the bit of time lost due to their newbishness and the xp boost from teaming balance eachother out very roughly.

I don't understand. We're talking newbies? We're talking people that won't be able to handle Sparkle graveyard spirits themselves, right? Or we're talking RH-Titan level?

[Cherek]

First of all, I do think it should be easier for more players, new and old, to team up and hunt together. I don't think making it easier to drag along tiny newbies in myth content is the way, though. But I am also somewhat confused about which players the original idea is targeting here? Do you mean tiny newbies or mid-level players Nils?

If it's about bringing in more heroes and titans in myth teams, then I think the idea makes sense. But if we are talking actual newbies here (greenhorne-veteran) I don't think they have anything to gain from joining a myth to GK, the Cathedral, or similar.

- They will grow ultra-quick and become super brutal in no time, which will suck when they don't have myth assistance, and it will also "force" them to quest quest quest and quest only to bring it down.
- They wont get any sense of achievement since they haven't done anything on their own. They just grew X mortal levels because they ran into the "right" player.
- Joining a myth or myth team running around in big grinders (usually on scripts) and watching combat spam (or nothing it all if they have combat set to off) isn't likely to be very helpful in teaching them the game.

If you want to help true newbies I actually don't think bringing them on a "myth XP train" is very useful for them at all. I would argue that it would even be better to _not_ interact with them at all compared to that, and let them learn the game on their own and grow at their own pace instead. If you do want to help newbies, I think it's much better to take them hunting in areas they can assist, and take it slowly, even if it isn't useful to your own progress. I don't think "teaching newbies the game" and "grinding in high level areas" should be mixed, to be honest. I don't see much benefit at all for the newbie in a scenario like that.

[Quantum]

Personally I tend to take newbies to the Sparkle Orc camp. And if they are kender or otherwise challenged in the bravery and adventure departments, I'll bring them to Icewall. Which can be as safe or as scary as you want it to be. There are plenty options. I actually like that some of the new areas are "unfriendly" when it comes to newbies.

Places like the frigate requires you to be myth, and I have met several people who really celebrated when they could finally come along there. They would not be celebrating if they could have gone there as novices. If something is difficult and you have to work for it, then the reward is that much more enjoyable.

I would go the opposite direction from Nils and ask that new areas be gated behind large and difficult quests, or simply stat barriers. Or both. To keep the newbies out of the myth+ areas.

And then leave the newbie teams with the Sparkle Orcs.

Try wielding an orc weapon when you're teaming there. It's more fun for the newbies if you're not just rushing through an area. Once they grow up a few levels you can start zooming them through Qualinesti Elves for xp if you want to help them.