A wise man once said "the game begins at myth", subsequently any level below myth are considered newbies in this context.
1) I fail to understand why the newbie's size matters, or the fact that a high brute is somehow problematic, especially considering it's an inevitable result with low quest experience - spending some time on an "xp-train" will certainly expedite it, but again - why is this a problem? The experience will be gained at some point anyway, yes?
*gazes at his brute being extremely violent*
2) During teaming, conversation usually happens (which is good). Teams provide teachable moments, and "How's your brute?" is a natural question after a while. If the newbie informs of high brute the answer is usually: "You should go quest, bro". But now, unlike before the teaming began, the newbie might have grown a little and is able to train a skill or kill a mob to progress further on a specific quest, learned a piece of information which is vital to survival, got help to achieve an item necessary to solve a quest or even supplied with a weapon otherwise unavailable to him/her. This is help given at little to no cost, help the newbie wouldn't have gotten if the option was to kill sparkle orcs. Cause while I applaud Quantum's efforts and almost envy his altruism, expecting everyone to follow this model is wishful thinking. I should go fly-swatting for hours purely out of the goodness of my heart? Preposterous!
If there's nothing in it for me, I won't do it, and if this is true for me - assume this is true for many others.
3) The size of the newbie does not matter in this case, as they're just as likely to die (well, not be able to participate) whether they're titan or wanderer as long as the mobs attacks the smallest one in team as a rule.
4) The newbie's ability to assist (see self-discipline) does not seem affect the newbie's experience gain in any significant way. Unless titan-champ or higher, the tickling provided when assisting is of no consequence either.
Anyway,
I've always taken pride in understanding the mechanics and idiosyncrasies of the individual grinds, and knowing what tactics to apply in order to protect the team/keeping the aggression on me. The level of this mastery is one of several metrics I use to gauge someone else's leadership skills and ultimately determines whether or not I'll allow being led by them.
As mentioned previously, this does indeed make the game easier, more predictable, safer. The problem (if it can be called as such) is that after reaching a certain size these dangers are of no personal concern anymore, and at that point they serve only one purpose: hindering one or several young ones' participation. While I appreciate difficulty and danger, it's a matter of choice, specifically what direction the developers wish to take going forward, especially in regards to player retention, but maybe more importantly: How social should the game be? Should the game de facto prevent new players from teaming with old ones?
While many areas auto-attack either specific races or alignments, living/undead or anything that moves, there's usually a way to circumvent it (see tactics above). But off the top of my head, the current newbie hostile areas are:
Terel Trolls (Blocks progress for small players while letting the rest of the team move, will attack smaller member on team seemingly at random)
Avenir Ogres (Massive ogres spawn out of nowhere and attacks random team members)
Thanar Cathedral (Explicitly attacks smaller members of the team, and will do so again even after tank rotator is applied)
Saurians (Same as Cathedral)
Dunlendings (Attacks random members of the team)
So to my two initial questions, then
nils wrote: ↑25 Feb 2023 16:34
*Do we need to make newbie un-friendly content?
*Can content deemed newbie un-friendly be made newbie friendly?
Creating the newbie hostile mechanics was a choice. Changing them is a choice. Keeping them is a choice. Admin creating rules that dictate newbie hostility in new content is also a choice. Neither choice is mine to make, and frankly - all I really wanted to achieve was to point out inconsistencies between perceived vision and a recent trend that I think is in direct conflict with the idea of a social game.