New Player Feedback

Hello everyone. Jason Moryn here.

I don't know if this feedback will be useful for anyone. The problems I experienced are probably well known by now, and the things that I enjoyed certainly don't need repairing. Nevertheless, I'm well aware of the importance of criticism and the value of feedback.

Background: I'm not an MMO player by any means. Aside from Elite Dangerous, my only other MMO experience was Ultima Online. I'm also not an Ultima player, per se, as the original games pre-date my birth and attempts to play the originals were abortive due to the dated interface and gameplay. I am a fan of the setting, though, and loved UO dearly.

I started a couple of weeks ago as a Visitor. I really hated the initial experience. I couldn't double-click anything. There was no obvious explanation of using the E key, and I suffered the initial Blood River scene with a lot of frustration. I use a laptop with Skylake i7-HQ, 16 GB RAM, SD, and GTX 965m 4GB. The double-clicking problem does not seem to come from the performance of my computer, as the problem abated after the initial scenes, and I now play on nearly-max settings with no problem with double-clicking of any kind. I have no idea what the problem was at the beginning of the game, but it was awful.

After the initial scenes, I enjoyed the new player experience until it was time to go to Etceter and the Crag mines. The tier 5 area was like a wall, so I decided to try the other paths. I had read that it was wise to start them all early or they would otherwise be too easy. I didn't realize, though, as a visitor, that I wouldn't be able to complete certain parts of the quest. I was getting blocked in several areas, causing some confusion. I've since gone back and tried to tie-up the loose ends, but it feels very artificial and confusing now. I don't really understand the value of story-locking Visitors. The increasing challenge of the scenes is sufficient. It was also disappointing to experience the battle of Highvale after I had already spent time there seeking quest lines. Arabella had told me to go there, after all.

The Visitor experience is frustrating from a quest point of view. The mechanical aspects of it, however, were very good. I could do lots of adventure within the skill cap and the motivation to buy the game to improve further was definitely strong. SotA is very expensive in my local currency, but it was hard to resist.

Some explanation of death penalties would have been very useful. I used gravity as my express elevator in Highvale Outskirts because I thought nothing happened when I died except a resurrection delay. (A problem exasperated by the broken "Courage Can be Frigid" quest that had me going up-and-down to try to fix it.)

Now I'm a full player with a rented room in Veritas Sanctuary. I'm hanging out in the 2-4 tier adventure areas to learn and gather resources.I still have a lot of questions, especially about deck building, but I'm slowly figuring things out.

One final note: The systems are deceptively complex, and trial-and-error just doesn't work unless you already know for what you're looking. Without the community, especially the forums here, SotAWiki, and Youtubers, this game would no doubt be unplayable for casual gamers like myself. Thank you everyone for your help and contributions of knowledge to players like me.

 

Welcome @Jason_M !!!

 

Welcome to New Britannia. Glad SotAwiki was of use to you. Thanks for the feedback, as it will help the devs improve the game.

 

Welcome! I think this will be useful, at the very least in helping the devs know their plan to redo the tutorials (or make some) is a good plan. They should be coming in during the next few months.

If you are a miner, I've got a buying spot set up outside the Storm's Reach exit of the Understorm Gold Mine, which is near you in the Longfall Woods I think.

 

Glad you were able to survive.

When you beat this game you'll have a nice sense of satisfaction and you will see by those who wear the veil of the dead that it is indeed possible.

Couple tips: Training your strength will help with your inventory weight problems. You want to take all the junk items you get, salvage them and store the resulting metal and wood scrap, and use the "thing from scrap" recipies when crafting items to use less real wood/ingots. That saves time. You'll also want to find out the locations of where things are, like pecan nuts are in Hilt, for example, and you'll need pecan nuts to cook and you'll need to cook to get good buffs and use wolf and bear meat. You should visit 2 shrines each time you play to buff and eat 2 foods, you need all the buffs you can get.

Best of luck and remember those who gave their lives to the Obsidian Order.

 

Jason I feel your pain . I too bad a very rough time starting out and actually started over several times before getting lucky and finding some friends who helped me stay interested. My advice is to make friends in game and consider joining a guild. Also keep your skill trees limited to training only one or two at a time. Finally friends in game can take you along to higher tiers and get you massive amounts of hp needed for training your character. Take care and glad to have you in Shroud .

 

Ok, I'm not a new player but it feels like after a long break
So I hope I got my feedback at the right place.

First thing I noticed is a huge improvement at performance, so playing this game isn't a pain for me anymore. I can zone much faster and attend big events *cheers*
Aera-spells (more than one or two) make me still lag but in total running around and doing stuff in game is fun again.
I don't dive deeper into combat feedback because it is what it is now and will not change anymore to what I liked more. Sometimes you have to let go ;P
I did some questing, think this still needs some love aka bugfixing. ( and seriously....get the Lady in castle of the winds in Ardoris a new Hottub --- she deserve better than this simple wooden one ;P )
As a passionated decorator and crafter I love to see so much more Items to play with. You guys have done a great job with this.
Not only furniture but display your weapons and armor....how cool is that !
( prizes for heraldry in add-on seem a bit greedy to me tho, like 14 bucks for one cask pattern )

What I really appreciate is your support to groupplay now. It kinda felt ignored to me by Port when I took my break.

and last but not least... this still awesome community will not change it seems. Glad to see that. I had so much fun meeting friends ingame and new players also. Got a warm welcome and lots of help to restart my adventures in Novia.

so thanks and see you in Game
Gaelis Trajan

 

Thank you all for the kind replies.

Things are going great these days. The quest Courage can be Frigid has been fixed. The automap is still wonky, but a recent fix has improved that a lot.

I was able to finish the truth and courage quests. I was very disappointed by one aspect of the truth quest, though. I'll avoid spoilers just by saying that it is unbelievable for my character, or any decent person, to walk out of Artifice with clean steel. I'm hoping that that loose end gets trimmed in episode 2.

@BelGarian3 I haven't locked my skill trees and I'm startibg to feel the pinch. I've been trying everything and having a hard time choosing a path. I started with the idea of a staff-fighting necromancer. But time in New Britainia has rendered me a classic knight in plate armor and a sword. Nevertheless, I still can't shake the idea of a light armor swashbuckler. In UO, I had always found my way back to light armor and my beloved kryss, iteration after iteration, year after year. In single player games I always want to try being bad but eventually fail. Chaotic good is a stretch even for me. I blame my upbringing.

I have this praise for SotA: they made sword and board, the generic archetype since Greyhawk, loads of fun.

 

Welcome back @Gaelis.

 

Welcome @Jason_M . Thanks for your feedback. It is great to hear how the game feels for new players. This helps improve it going forward. Since this is still a young game we will still see many improvements as the devs respond to feedback as they can.

 

Welcome @Jason_M ! FTUE feedback is highly appreciated!