Helping Us Help Newbies!

Elanorwen · March 2013

Fixing runes could definitely help new mages/druids get into using the runes abilities. At present, any one rune AB looks as follows:

RUNES - UR

gold 1

Obviously, it shows what tint is needed to inscribe the rune. (Never mind the fact that it's probably one of the more expensive tertiaries along with tarot in terms of both supplies and willpower drain), but beyond that... unless you check the full list, it is impossible to determine what each rune does... and then, some are ambiguous in their explanations.

Example1: Eohl Peace will come to those under this rune's blessing.
Example2: Sigil This rune warns of a draining of the aura.

Do I fling these rune at myself and end up benefiting from some defensive effect... or do I fling them at others? How do they work exactly? All in all, any novice that grabs Runes and then is a bit too shy to ask questions about the abilities would likely end up being stumped.

I have tried reporting this, but got the usual response that it's working as intended and that I should contact my envoy if I felt it was wrong.

Tarkenton · March 2013

I can vouch for Valen's method of doing the planar quest. I'd followed the help file in the collegium and found my way to most everything except for Astral, but never more than a quick looksie and drop the thingie. He actually asked me about the places, and gave me a bit of a talking to when I told him about the lacking quality of my visits. Gave me a lot to think on.

Eritheyl · March 2013

When administering the Planar course, I make sure to not only explain how each place is connected to the others, but also drop a short explanation of what the place actually is. I wish everyone would take this sort of care with it, because the planescape is one of the things that I just couldn't grasp as a newbie. Hella complex, with no real way to address it aside from getting lucky with a good tutor, or trudging your way along.

Ninfoodle · March 2013

As a new player who has only seen my nexus and newton caves, I have a few problem areas I have seen. Hints are too fast and common. If I have split the java client screen, the split section at the top should NOT scroll while the bottom does. Because I often scroll back to reread hints, but new hints, mobile movements, and my travelling all force the text up over and over. If this is something that is fixable, THAT should be a hint.

Ragniliff · March 2013

I just had a moment of clarity, thinking over the endurance/willpower thread and trying to come up with ways to improve easing newbies into the game that require significantly less work.

And I believe I just came up with one. And it's so very, very simple.

IDEA: Switch around the skill placement of Potionlist and Itemlist on the Discernment skill tree.

WHY IS THIS A GOOD IDEA?

Okay. Let's start with Itemlist. It is presently learned at 50% novice, and allows you to quickly look over and access a whole slew of things, from clothing, to jewelry, to books, to esteem, to kegs. It's a great skill. However, I want you to consider: how many of these things are really pressing and important to a true newbie?

Right now, if you probe a vial, you only see the liquid it contains. There is no indication of how much use you still have from it.

For a newbie, knowing how much healing/mana you have left is probably one of the more important and early things you'll want to deal with, along with herbs. Herbs are already very neatly managed by the rift. But for a true newbie, there is no way to know with potions.

In addition to this, most everything else you can learn to use a discernment list for already has the information available by probing - the list just makes it easier to manage. You can see how many charges an enchanted ring still holds by probing it, you can see how many months clothing has left by probing it, etc.

Potionlist would be infinitely more valuable to a totally new person, so why do we make them wait longer to learn and access this skill than one that seems geared to a more advanced player?

I can't think of any good argument for why itemlist and potionlist shouldn't switch places. Let's do it.

Xenthos · March 2013

Is there any particular reason why they need to be separate skills? Letting them both be learned early on would be swell.

Shaddus · March 2013

Ragniliff said:

I just had a moment of clarity, thinking over the endurance/willpower thread and trying to come up with ways to improve easing newbies into the game that require significantly less work.

And I believe I just came up with one. And it's so very, very simple.

IDEA: Switch around the skill placement of Potionlist and Itemlist on the Discernment skill tree.

WHY IS THIS A GOOD IDEA?

Okay. Let's start with Itemlist. It is presently learned at 50% novice, and allows you to quickly look over and access a whole slew of things, from clothing, to jewelry, to books, to esteem, to kegs. It's a great skill. However, I want you to consider: how many of these things are really pressing and important to a true newbie?

Right now, if you probe a vial, you only see the liquid it contains. There is no indication of how much use you still have from it.

For a newbie, knowing how much healing/mana you have left is probably one of the more important and early things you'll want to deal with, along with herbs. Herbs are already very neatly managed by the rift. But for a true newbie, there is no way to know with potions.

In addition to this, most everything else you can learn to use a discernment list for already has the information available by probing - the list just makes it easier to manage. You can see how many charges an enchanted ring still holds by probing it, you can see how many months clothing has left by probing it, etc.

Potionlist would be infinitely more valuable to a totally new person, so why do we make them wait longer to learn and access this skill than one that seems geared to a more advanced player?

I can't think of any good argument for why itemlist and potionlist shouldn't switch places. Let's do it.

I kind of agree, but there -is- that new thing where newbies don't use up sips.

Ssaliss · March 2013

One thing I've been thinking about for a while is to change some of the DMP giving abilities around. Not to make DMP more plentiful for high-end combatants in any way, but rather to help newbies get the DMP without transcending several skills.

For instance, some things that give DMP both rely on the lessons put in its skillset as well as the lessons put into the parent skillset. This means that transcending one skillset gives you 75% of the maximum DMP; to get 100% you'd need to transcend two skillsets.

There are also abilities that give DMP alongside other things. The one I'm primarily thinking of is Nightkiss (and, I'd assume, Drawdown). Splitting this into two skills (NightAura and NightBlessing), giving newbies partial DMP early on in the skillset (which would increase to 100% at the time they reach transcendant) but requiring them to transcend to get the new attacks (or weapon stats, in case they're warriors) would help give them DMP while keeping the desire to reach transcendant (both to maximise DMP and to get the new attacks).

Shaddus · March 2013

I'm not entirely sure we should worry about DMP for newbies, but it's worth a shot.

Gorlois · March 2013

I don't think they need anymore help or advantages. Novicehood is now officially too easy. We have to prepare them for the real world Lusternia.

Dying is long, you will gorge on herbs and drown in elixirs. You will go to hand in corpses and find the denizen dead, and will find there is nothing for you to hunt.

Although maybe do it so that astral beasts can't go through innocence because we lose so many novices that way.

Everiine · March 2013

Gorlois said:

I don't think they need anymore help or advantages. Novicehood is now officially too easy. We have to prepare them for the real world Lusternia.

Dying is long, you will gorge on herbs and drown in elixirs. You will go to hand in corpses and find the denizen dead, and will find there is nothing for you to hunt.

Although maybe do it so that astral beasts can't go through innocence because we lose so many novices that way.

Nonsense, unless we make novices impervious to all forms of harm, defeat, death, and responsibility, they will simply ragequit the first time they attack a creature way beyond them and Lusternia will fall. /sarcasm

I completely agree, though. When I think about "How can we help newbies?" I try to think about ways to make the game less confusing and to introduce them to the lore and mechanics in a logical way. Instead, we handed them EasyMode.

Riluna · March 2013

It's been said time and again that the major factor in player retention is player interaction. And while that onus will always quite naturally be more on the players than the admin, there are things you could do to encourage it. The mentor system isn't the greatest for doing that as is. Although it is nice to get that credit bonus from time to time, in my experience it happens maybe one time in twenty? The whole mentor system seems more of a benefit for those who already enjoy teaching newbies, since it's a whole lot of commitment for a whole lot of nothing (most of the time).

I rarely play anymore, so I'm not exactly sure what sort of reward would be appropriate and acceptable, but I'm positive you can find something. Maybe when they get the "You are now a full member of the guild!" it can also ask if the ex-novice would like to thank anybody for getting them that far. And then that person gets an Estarran favour or something, if a credit or two would be out of place. Abuseable? Sure. But also easily trackable (and therefore easily punishable for those who do abuse it).

Or if you, the admin, are being all lurky and spying on us (we know you do

), and you see somebody going out of their way to help a newbie, that's a great opportunity for some Divine/PC interaction. One of my all-time favorite teaching moments was when Maylea manifested to talk to me for some reason I can't even remember anymore, and startled my poor student, who didn't even realize the Divine interacted with the world at all. Whether that was indeed the reason or not, that character was around several RL months longer than most, and it was fun.

tl;dr - Reward the little things, and don't force a major commitment that most players understandably don't want, in order to get that reward.

Dys · March 2013

Everiine said:

Nonsense, unless we make novices impervious to all forms of harm, defeat, death, and responsibility, they will simply ragequit the first time they attack a creature way beyond them and Lusternia will fall. /sarcasm

I completely agree, though. When I think about "How can we help newbies?" I try to think about ways to make the game less confusing and to introduce them to the lore and mechanics in a logical way. Instead, we handed them EasyMode.

I like things getting mailed back on logout. I quit on my first few goes from buying all my herbs for novice tasks and losing them because I forgot the rift (yes, I did that twice, months apart...). Before people get invested in the game a small annoyance can be enough to make them leave. Some, anyway.

Majanishi · March 2013

Shaddus said:

Ragniliff said:

I just had a moment of clarity, thinking over the endurance/willpower thread and trying to come up with ways to improve easing newbies into the game that require significantly less work.

And I believe I just came up with one. And it's so very, very simple.

IDEA: Switch around the skill placement of Potionlist and Itemlist on the Discernment skill tree.

WHY IS THIS A GOOD IDEA?

Okay. Let's start with Itemlist. It is presently learned at 50% novice, and allows you to quickly look over and access a whole slew of things, from clothing, to jewelry, to books, to esteem, to kegs. It's a great skill. However, I want you to consider: how many of these things are really pressing and important to a true newbie?

Right now, if you probe a vial, you only see the liquid it contains. There is no indication of how much use you still have from it.

For a newbie, knowing how much healing/mana you have left is probably one of the more important and early things you'll want to deal with, along with herbs. Herbs are already very neatly managed by the rift. But for a true newbie, there is no way to know with potions.

In addition to this, most everything else you can learn to use a discernment list for already has the information available by probing - the list just makes it easier to manage. You can see how many charges an enchanted ring still holds by probing it, you can see how many months clothing has left by probing it, etc.

Potionlist would be infinitely more valuable to a totally new person, so why do we make them wait longer to learn and access this skill than one that seems geared to a more advanced player?

I can't think of any good argument for why itemlist and potionlist shouldn't switch places. Let's do it.

I kind of agree, but there -is- that new thing where newbies don't use up sips.

That's pretty limited though. I just started a newbie and I don't recall seeing it mentioned to me that I didn't use actual sips. I may have edited it out though since I obviously saw it on the changelog with Maja. Further there wasn't a notification of the change from not using sips to using sips, which made my bromides go out real fast.

However, there is a way for newbies to track their sips without potionlist that requires 45 lessons or so into planar and that most guilds require, which is liquid rift. The cost is a little higher in the long run, but it's not impossible in the least. So switching Itemlist and Potionlist, while I think it is a good idea, should be weighed with the fact that number of sips are accessible for enough gold to buy a couple of teardrops, have a couple of vials made, and putting the extra lessons in.

Lerin · March 2013

How about a way to flag newbies based on their previous experience? This could be a question during creation, for example:

How would you best describe your previous experience with text games?

1. Completely new to text games.

2. Played text games before, but not Lusternia.

3. Played another IRE game, but not Lusternia.

4. Played Lusternia before.

This classification would only be visible to collegium professors and only while the character was a novice. You could also offer an incentive for people making alts to select option 4 by giving a reduction in college/novice time or a small XP buff for the first few hours (something a genuine newbie isn't going to miss, but that would be nice for alts).

I think this would help people tailor their interactions with new characters better as someone who is completely new to muds is going to have very different needs to someone coming from another IRE game or who has played Lusternia before.

Gorlois · March 2013

You know, I'm wondering if the tutorial is actually effective enough for it's purpose. Most of the time when I randomly pick a novice on novicewho and help them out, they are surprised to find vials in their backpack and a weapon/instrument. Like 'WOW COOL' when they should have learnt about this stuff in the tutorial. In fact, there is a specific part where you have to get something out of a backpack.

Maybe we should make sure first time players aware that the tutorial IS interactive and not just a bunch of text to read if they're skipping it.

Either way, novices are either too dim to understand the tutorial, or they're just skipping it. Maybe we could make it mandatory to do the tutorial.

It's not like it's a bad thing to get an extra level or 2 thanks to your shadow.

Eritheyl · March 2013

The issue with the pack is that, when you're at the part where you probe it and remove the journal, nothing else is in there. The vials and weapon/instrument appear (as far as I know) once you leave the Realm of the Fates and are entered proper into the collegium. There should probably be a small alert at that point, like 'Probe your backpack, you got some useful crap!'.

So, no. I don't think the novices are dim and/or skipping the tutorial, that part is just very sneaky. Have some compassion.

Allyrianne · March 2013

I'm pretty sure I could see the vials and the clothes when first instructed to probe the pack. I'm not sure if the lute was in there or not. The main problem is that depending on the rate you're going through the tutorial at, you're probably mostly focused on the journal and don't have time to look at what else is in your pack because hints keep popping up to just take out the journal and read it. None of the other things in your pack are discussed at all. If you do take them out, after leaving the portal, hints tell you what they're for and how to use them, but that's also when you're being directed to read x scroll, and talk to y person, and try doing your collegium tasks.

Shaddus · March 2013

My issue with the tutorial is that I think it's been entirely too streamlined. I realise we want novices to get into the full game as quickly as possible, but you've removed a lot of the information given in the older tutorial including how to use tells and purchase goods.

Shaddus · March 2013

Riluna said:

It's been said time and again that the major factor in player retention is player interaction. And while that onus will always quite naturally be more on the players than the admin, there are things you could do to encourage it. The mentor system isn't the greatest for doing that as is. Although it is nice to get that credit bonus from time to time, in my experience it happens maybe one time in twenty? The whole mentor system seems more of a benefit for those who already enjoy teaching newbies, since it's a whole lot of commitment for a whole lot of nothing (most of the time).

I rarely play anymore, so I'm not exactly sure what sort of reward would be appropriate and acceptable, but I'm positive you can find something. Maybe when they get the "You are now a full member of the guild!" it can also ask if the ex-novice would like to thank anybody for getting them that far. And then that person gets an Estarran favour or something, if a credit or two would be out of place. Abuseable? Sure. But also easily trackable (and therefore easily punishable for those who do abuse it).

Or if you, the admin, are being all lurky and spying on us (we know you do ), and you see somebody going out of their way to help a newbie, that's a great opportunity for some Divine/PC interaction. One of my all-time favorite teaching moments was when Maylea manifested to talk to me for some reason I can't even remember anymore, and startled my poor student, who didn't even realize the Divine interacted with the world at all. Whether that was indeed the reason or not, that character was around several RL months longer than most, and it was fun.

tl;dr - Reward the little things, and don't force a major commitment that most players understandably don't want, in order to get that reward.

I can't like this post enough.

Morshoth · March 2013

Shaddus said:

My issue with the tutorial is that I think it's been entirely too streamlined. I realise we want novices to get into the full game as quickly as possible, but you've removed a lot of the information given in the older tutorial including how to use tells and purchase goods.

A longer tutorial would go a LONG way. It can already be skipped, so if they don't want to learn it, they won't have to, and they'll be just as fine as if they went through it (equipment/level-wise)

Gorlois · March 2013

I remember now about buying the clothes there. I didn't notice it in the long run but yes, it has been dummied down a bit.

It deserves a good revision maybe.

Lavinya · March 2013

Another mud I have been playing has an idea which I think is great, though I'm not sure how well we could implement it in Lusternia, but it bears thinking about.

Basically, anyone new to muds in general and the game have the option of requesting a tour guide after they finish the basic intro/creation. A message comes up when the new person joins, saying they also request a tour guide. A player then will meet them and take them on a tour of the city, giving a basic run down on basic concepts and a brief tour of the area as well. The guide receives a bonus for helping (It's an xp bonus but it's a lot harder to get xp there, I think a simple gold or credit reward would suffice.)

It's not a mentor, they get one of those in the guild, and it's ideally what teachers/aides should be doing, but perhaps with the notification and added incentive for people to actually spend the 15 mins with a new person could make a lot of difference! Just an idea to ponder.

Thul · March 2013

I somehow end up working with a lot of newbies, many from other IREs, some just entirely new. But one of the frequent questions I get is "how do I get into PvP?" And my answer is "get demi and a few thousand creds worth of artifacts." I feel like telling them otherwise is just going to get them killed repeatedly.

The PvP game is complicated, and I don't see that changing without alienating the established playerbase. You need a curing system. You need your guild skills up. You can be useful in group combat spamming hinder skills, but that's roughly one skill out of the thirty sitting in your AB list. I think it's especially bad for physical class newbies, who might have come in expecting to swing a sword at people and not have to think about things too much, when in reality they've got the parry/stance/rebound system to figure out.

The cost of entry into the PvP game is kinda high, and I don't see that changing. I don't know whether the admin would be willing to look into ways to open up things to more players (lower lesson total on guild skills, reduce cost on certain "necessary" artifacts, shuffle some of the more useful skills towards the bottom of the AB list) but I don't think we should be introducing more elements that make it harder for newbies to enter combat.

The 'chemantics are adding a wave of skills that can do more damage in one hit than a novice has health, mana, and ego put together, as an AoE effect... that doesn't seem like a step in the right direction to me.

Enyalida · March 2013

In that direction, there are definitely some combat-useful skills that otherwise do absolutely nothing for most players (I'm looking at you, resilience) that could stand to cost less lessons. Other skills, like Aethercraft, have such a limited use that having them cost the same as guild skills always seemed odd to me.

Thul · March 2013

Can we merge Resilience into Combat, like we did with Magic and High/LowMagic? >_> That was cool, when that happened.

Elanorwen · March 2013

Pretty sure Demi isn't required for being successful in combat. Artis are a good idea as a warrior, but most of the time not required as a monk. All in all, I'd recommend someone wanting to start into fighting to spend the 150 creds on arti pipes and if they can't afford more than that, just focus on guild skills. As a warrior, they can likely manage it with just one trans too. Problem usually tends to be that there aren't that many 1:1 fights anymore. I see some random novice doing nothing but web/vines and my reaction tends to be to introduce them to my cudgel, whereas they could have been doing something more useful if it was a 1:1 fight.

That said, I think the problem with combat is not about the amount of artifacts you need to buy or the amount of skills you need to trans, it is more along the lines of Lusternia being the IRE with the most complicated combat. There are afflictions that are not readily apparent in what they do, so someone reading their skills and seeing they can deliver an affliction means absolutely nothing when they have no idea how that affliction actually helps them. Then you run into the other problem... finding someone to teach you. My Tahtetso got scrapped, for instance, because I tried talking with three different champions about combat training and all I got was... "Here, have some forms, use them, win."

That's something that most certainly needs addressing, and probably not just by champions either. Champions can be busy, they have other things to do and so on. Yes, I know a fair amount of people learned how to fight by trial and error, but you also need to consider that for a complete newbie to Lusternia, combat can be simply overwhelming. They walk into a group fight, everyone around you is doing something, there's probably a meld that's spamming 20+ lines each tic and all of a sudden, you're dead. Following that, you step back and try to ask people what happened, try to look for someone to help you improve the outcome for next time... and you get no responses from anyone around you, including your guild champion. You buckle down, do it all over a couple more times with the same result, and you just think... well, this is obviously not the place for me.

There are hundreds of thousands muds out there. Some of them are better, some of them are worse than Lusternia, and some of them have the easy PvP where it all depends on skill levels and/or equipment, where you know what the best gear is, where to find it and where having it means that you'll be murdering people left and right without the need to do anything more complicated than typing KILL <target>. Lusternia takes skill to win, and it takes knowing how to go about acquiring said skill. I tried talking with the Glom champions about holding basic classes on combat. Most were definitely interested in that idea, but then I got one telling me something along the lines of... "practice is better" Well, practice is all fine and dandy, but again... if you have no idea what you're doing, you're not going to acquire said knowledge through osmosis.

I guess what I'm saying is... there probably need to be more help files that deal with afflictions, explaining their effects (which tend to usually not be readily apparent), not just how they're cured and so on. I know that information isn't some secret knowledge, but if a bare newbie wants to get into PvP, that's pretty much required reading, and maybe even try and talk champions into producing some basic tactics for each of their guilds, maybe give them some incentive to do so. I'm willing to bet we'll be keeping more newbies if that were to happen.

Gorlois · March 2013

@Thul I agree, but you'll never get the majority of combatants agreeing with or trying to make any effort. Most like being the big demigod who can crush anyone but another demigod, and they like being all powerful because it means they can be dicks, and shove around the little guy.

It keeps getting worse with the Admin piling on advantage after advantage for Demigods and perfecting that while the rest of us have to move around doing buggy quests because the Admin just don't seem to care otherwise.

Of course, there could be less emphasis on PVP and make it easier for people to enter without bankrupting themselves, but again, I doubt it. Most don't know what it's like to work hard and get a trade skill, and get stuff in it, then find themselves being shoved aside as someone can come in, flash cash around and get every trade skill transcendant in a day. I feel like telling novices 'Unless you have money you won't enjoy it much'.

EDIT: I'd like to reiterate: Make astral beasts unable to go through innocence. Then we can take novices to Astral without giving them the magic equivalent of five coats and getting them accidentally killed.

Elanorwen · March 2013

Gorlois said:

EDIT: I'd like to reiterate: Make astral beasts unable to go through innocence. Then we can take novices to Astral without giving them the magic equivalent of five coats and getting them accidentally killed.

Now I'm confused. What's astral and innocence got to do with it? If you're planning on power-leveling some Novice on Astral, then you're most certainly doing it wrong. If this is about the Planes quest, well... it's not exactly hard to make them wait a minute or two on cosmic while you clean out the five astral critters up on your sphere. Think I've only lost one Novice on astral due to a planes quest attempt and that was only because they decided to wander off.

Enyalida · March 2013

Trade skills are another thing I usually feel bad telling novices about, but hopefully we'll get a Trades/Economy special report at some time and will be able to look into those problems! Every so often we have those novices that are hugely into some trade or another, usually herbs - with the idea they'll be a big merchant and will turn a profit, and we have to try really hard to dissuade them... because if we don't, there will inevitably come that point where they realize that they'd need to make millions of gold just to break even on their investment in the trade, and it's not going to happen.

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