Opinion: Stanley in Soltown shouldn't send you to Cugel until after you helped a refugee

Which would resolve a lot of the issues when I find new folks dying in high skull areas west of Ardoris, since they passed through all the nice starter areas since they are on this 'questline'.

Having them at least resolve one or even two of the refugee quests would make the new path of love player, go back and at least see a beginner area before running off along the A-B-C to certain death in the city of dead and its surroundings...

That way they would at least know where to return to for easier times.

 

Agreed.

 

+1

 

I agree. Even at level 30, Necropolis is certain death.

 

Yeah, as a new player it is not intuitive to find beginner areas.

It would be handy to know without loading an area to glance at the number of skulls it has on the post.

 

Well, since you can leave Ed without even getting his papers to give Stan, maybe they should start restrictions from there too - for the beginners?

 

+12

 

You can no longer do this, as of a hotfix this release.

 

But should they be a gating factor? Are any of the refugee quests in any way related to the Love story line? Are these just unrelated misc quests or actually related side quests? Making the refugee quests a step in the Love storyline implies it is an important and critical element to it. I'd rather they create related quests that not only further fleshes out this principle/virtue and gives the player the XP they need, rather than put unrelated quests just to pad it.

 

It isn't a gate in that no one is stopping players from just walking into any map they want. But the game shouldn't outright encourage you to do more difficult things when you first step off the boat, unless you want to drive away new players from the onset.

 

Yes it should be a gating factor, definitely in my opinion.

The game play needs it and the lore would work better if it was.

Stanley shouldn't trust you to carry the important package unless you have shown some sort of worth.

Furthermore it doesn't make sense to me to send the avatar to Ardoris to meet the oracle lest the player has done something which affects the paths/virtues and as is if you are new to sandbox and more used to Asian MMOs then you'd miss all of those opportunities to do so before you meet her. Which is kinda important to me.

So according to me that simple addition would make the starting experience and the path of love make much more sense. Plus using existing quests means it requires not much work.

But mind you, I think that one should always have multiple options to solve something like this so I said only one of the refugee quests should be required.

It would also (after r32) be lots of fun if there would be implications if one chose a more rewarding quest than one based on love, ie if the quest givers more explicitly said in the journal 'no reward to give but my gratitude could you please find my daughter' versus I'll get a sack of gold to get a key'.

Where I would also advocate being given an opportunity to chose another way and either trick Stanley or threaten (hate path) one of the refugees to lie to Stanley if one so wants.
Then tie that as well with the Oracle when one is sent there in Ardoris.

 

I do find it interesting that Edvard is at all these scenes as things are happening and the guards seem to take orders from Edvard even though he is a bard. Is he secretly a spy?

 

Yeah, I agree with you -- the game should not lead you on a path that you aren't ready for, especially without any further guidance, so there's definitely quest balancing issues at play here. I was just asking the question if inserting (i.e. requiring) presumably unrelated steps directly in that story line was the right thing to do.

But ok, if they're going to do this, then at least tell us why Stanley wants us to help the refugees. What's his relation to them? What's his motivation for the request? What's so important about helping them out that must be done before the player is allowed to continue on this path? Connect the emotional dots, give us the story behind this step so we better understand the characters and world and its relation to the Love story line. If you can't, why is it required? It'd be no different than having Stanley tell you to go gather 500 wood for /handwaving reasons before he tells you to go see Cugel.

Totally agreed. I meant should the refugee quests specifically be those gating factors. I elaborated on that a bit to ensure the story line and all its steps are relevant. Thus, Stanley, being a quest NPC in that story line, should be giving you relevant quests that further expands upon the lore or explaining why its important to him for you to do the tasks he's asking of you vs. just blatantly telling you "go kill 500 wolves before you can continue" or "go harvest 500 wood" in these area(s) for no other reason than busy work / grinding.

I think multiple options would be great, if they both the ability and time to do so. Again, they can certainly make one of the refugee quests as part of that set of options (as gates), but currently I wouldn't understand why unless they enhanced the dialog and story on this.

 

And that's when you KNOW that the skulls have any significance in the first place. When you don't, you're S.o.L.

Early-to-mid game, a large majority of the quests should guide the players (kinda like what some of the quests do for Soltown and Solace Bridge) all the way to one of the more difficult (group and/or "bring your companions") dungeons. And THEN you know that your player has a good sense of the world around him/her and you can start letting them figuring out stuff like "where to go" on their own.

A cool way to do would be to have dialogue based on character level, that way it's like the NPC can size you up and, if it judges you to be a little green, then they can give more info.

 

Maybe gaining the refugees' trust is required to get one of them to help you. So helping a few would get you on their good side, allowing you to speak to the one that can advance the storyline to the oracle in Ardoris. I hope the game has some form of reputation, and grouping that reputation regionally would be expected.. This could help reveal how that works and why we might want to do it. This reputation could also affect prices at vendors and open up more side-quests as people begin to trust us.

 

I'm not a fan of reputation affecting prices... unless you've done something to help that *specific* merchant. Even then, they probably gave you a reward of some kind, so it would need to be something very big to have their unending appreciation.