New player feedback

Hello! Lovely game you have here and thanks for the opportunity to provide feedback. These are fresh eyes and I am not certain about all the features of the game so I will write about the issues I had problems with.

Before the Lunar portal:
Char gen and customization was nice. More hair styles would be nice but that is the rp'er in me. I am a sucker for customization. Combat decks are pretty weighty but I feel there needs to be more regarding how to optimize them. With so many options, I see the "jack of all trades and master of none" paradox being a problem. I just picked my fave Ultima class and will try to build around that. Skill tree also needs more explanation. Hovering over the skill button in order to show that you need to find a trainer for this maybe?
Character sheet UI: can this be streamlined to something like pages with tabs? Like a tab to show inventory, a tab to show what skills and stats you are working on, what deck is active. I know this sounds simple but is alot of work but hunting and pecking for the right directory path is cumbersome (for a newbie).

Beyond the Lunar portal:
A question of the mmo, I notice alot of solo players (hence the master of alot of skills and observations of skill grinding). In order to promote grouping, can perks be given if you group with players to complete a quest or even share a quest within the group? Better yet, have quests that can only be completed in a group?
As a new player in Highvale, how come I cannot cook? Have the basic skill, fires are all over the place and I even have a cooking pot. Alot of animals have sacrificed their bodies for a goodly amount of meat. One can find a smithy, foundry, loom, tailor table, leatherworking station but not one oven/firepit in which to cook. I have a feeling that food is a hidden gem in this game.

For the roleplay:
Since I have played (and still do) LOTRO I am very happy that rp is supported here. Can we have character flags to let other players who want to rp recognize each other? From what I have seen of the forums, rp is locked into guilds.
I am eager to try the music feature and see if my LOTRO abc files will work here I know that flagging a place or event for rp is an invitation to trolls who enjoy ruining other people's fun but I hope there is a workaround.

Steam connectivity:
I generally use STEAM for new games and I tried and failed to link to my Steam account. Other people have had problems so I went through the website since I heard about this game last year (2017) during the kickstarter campaign. Should we be linking the game through STEAM or can we maintain the standalone connection through Shroud's website?

Be kind in comments. I'm new

 

Once you link your steam account it is permanent so if you ever have an idea about selling your account for RMT later on, don't connect it. If you don't care about that then do it.

The haters say that all of our players are only steam players, so this is an amusing thread already

You can cook at a cooking station. It looks like an oven. you will need a pot to cook and you will need to have it equipped (right click, or drag it into the window where crafting stuff is shown equipped. You can either learn or buy recipies. not all recipies are discoverable.

Character sheet / UI - Good luck. we complained about it for 5 years straight and the best we got so far is the borders got removed. You'll get used to it. Worst is when you inadvertenly start untraining skills, so watch for skills that are declining in level carefully.

RP - just try. There is already group only content like the lost vale and the content in there that requires a group for the Banner of Ethos, for example.

Collect all the banners. Build the virtue statues. Don't buy them unless you want secondary ones, it's more fun to get them the first time during quests.

Same goes for other content that you get from quests, unless you're buying replacements or additional ones for another house, it's better to earn them in game the first time anyway.

 

The thing about cooking is that it is a complex system where basically all recipes require many different ingredients, some of which must be pre-processed. Even for the simplest recipes, which are fried or baked fish, you need to first make a jar of cooking oil, which you make from an empty jar and pecan nuts. For others, like chicken potpie, you not only need the cooking oil, you also need to make pie dough first, for which you need, among other ingredients, butter and flour, for which you first must harvest wheat, then process it to get a sack of wheat grain, which you then can process again to get a sack of flour, and you need butter which you first have to make from milk. I assume it is because of this complexity that could easily cause confusion and frustration among new players that there are no cooking stations in the outskirts (though I think I remember there is one in the Bloodriver outskirts - might be mistaken).

Roleplay is by far not guild based here in my experience. Actually most guilds have roleplayer and non-roleplayers. Same counts for most towns. Yes, it is challenging to find other roleplayers, and sometimes I, too, get very frustrated about that. As a starting point I recommend visiting the towns of Kahli and Blackstone Gate, as both have a very strong focus on RP. Tuesday nights there is a RP tavern night organized by the Zog Cabal and hosted at changing locations. I have never been there due to timezones, but I heard it is fun. There is currently also a plot going on which is partly played on the forums but will also have in-game events, where you can get involved, the Black Sails saga. In the RP town of Kahli, there are currently several small plots happening and one larger, for which there is no forum documentation as we Kahli folks prefer to RP in-game. Sometimes things get documented later in journals on RPOTA.com, which is a great source for RPers to feature their character backgrounds and journals.

Also Discord is a good starting point to find other RPers. For example the RPOTA Discord channel.

Finally, I'd like to invite you to Helheim, which is a 100% RP district in Kahli that is home to a small but very dedicated group of RPers. Things have been slow the past weeks due to peope visiting their families for the holidays, but should be picking up again on the weekend.

Your LOTRO abc-files should work in SotA. Just copy them into your Shroud of the Avatar sheet music folder. It should be here: C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Portalarium\Shroud of the Avatar\Sheet Music

Then when you are in the game, equip an instrument or sit down at a piano or other standing instrument and type /play <nameofthesong> in your chat window. You can also type /playlist to see which songs you currently have in your sheet music folder or as actual sheet music in your inventory.

You can make your own sheet music by using a blank sheet music and importing an abc file from your sheet music folder there. There are also player vendors that sell sheet music.

When you want to play music with other players, you all must be in a party. Then everyone types /play <nameofthesong> sync in their chat window, and when all are done, one types /playstart.

If you have questions, or would like to roleplay or make music together, send me a message in-game. I'm Helvig Ingvildsdottir, and you find me in Kahli around noon and in the afternoons NBT, and on the weekends also evenings.

 

Welcome! I think you are one of the subsets of players that is really going to enjoy SotA as long as you get far enough in to meet everyone!

In almost all cases there is no griefing at events. Watch for them, go to them, ask for people to teach you emotes and you'll be loaded. I am guessing there will be a dance party this Friday hosted by @Alleine Dragonfyre , that would be a great opportunity to meet a bunch of like minded players.

Group up! Let others know (@Sannio, let new players know!) that they get more XP when they are in a group, so they might as well form some parties in the Outskirts and go get through those puzzles together.

You can quickly get to your abc file folder by typing /datafolder in the chat window.

See you in game!