Sieges of Starter Towns is Stupid...

My friend and I both signed up for the free access and quickly bought the game and some pledges.

I wound up in Soltown, he in Resolute. At the time we were still struggling learning game mechanics and interface. I was fortunate enough to be in Soltown....however, Resolute was under siege and he was getting killed repeatedly trying to complete quest missions in Highvale and nearby areas. Eventually, he quit and his words were to the effect of what a dumb way to introduce new players to a game and he had better ways to waste his time.

I went through sieges on Ardoris and eventually Resolute and at the starting level, they are not trivial, particularily when you have a lack of guidance and information.

I strongly suggest you get rid of sieges, which I think are a very nice feature later, from starter cities...they make no sense whatsoever to me.

 

so sorry that he had that experience... fortunately, the starting areas will get a HUGE revamp and hopefully he'll give the game another shot when the new starting areas are implemented... also, welcome to New Britannia....

 

Wow so sorry about yours and your friends experience. I hope your friend will try again. I have a friend who will not play in development because of starting experiences for one thing and things not in the game yet when he tried it. So thank you for taking the time to write about your experience. It really will help going forward. And yes no sieges for starter players. @DarkStarr @Lord British2 @Lum the Mad

lol not fiend but friend, well hopefully j/k

 

Thank you for taking the time to give feedback! I agree with no sieges to starter towns. Hopefully your friend will give it another try.

 

Are we still able to go through the siege by taking the outer routes and bypass the hard mobs?

 

Yea, but it's not an easy thing that someone new would find. It also includes some tier 2-3 mobs which can easily dispatch a new arrival less they know how to run and heal at the same time.

 

The new Outskirts maps should mitigate this quite a bit but we also need to be way more direct about the side route that bypasses the main action.

 

Caution taping, traffic cones, and signage. Solves everything.
Or a mysterious one eyed old man that teleports you to the other side if your adv level is less than 10.

 

made a new character yesterday on account with 0 benefits, started hunting 2 skull scene 15 minutes after creation no problems. after that I wanted to get in to kiln and there was a siege there but managed to get through without barely taking damage (no movement or defense abilities) died at the finish line on my way back but that's totally acceptable I'd say for a half hour old character
..

//Hettar meadowleaf adv lvl 1-5~~

to much has been pushed towards instant gratification. slippery slope slippery slope.

 

Seiges are a relatively new thing in game that have been going through a lot of dev adjusting and balancing lately. This kind of info is vitally important to get to the dev's to help them out. When you run into things like this, you can submit a bug report (in the R40 forum section). One of the cool things of being in pre-release for this game is that you can help them develop it. Its kinda cool to report bugs and watch them fix them, it makes you feel like you are actually making an imprint on the final product when its officially released.

On this topic, the dev's are very aware and are creating better new player starting zones before they are thrown out into the open world where you may actually stumble upon things at a low level that may harm you.

This is actually one of the best things about SOTA, you can go anywhere any time and you have to be careful. Im adventure lvl 93 and I run into places exploring that start getting dangerous and I have to back of (and plan to come back with some mates).

Check out this video I made of exploring the new mine they put in this release. This was my first time in so I took it nice and slow and explored.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/133698807

 

My POT is very near one of the starter areas and I have a full crafting area for people (new or otherwise) to use if they wish. I have purposely removed all devotionals in my town (as of r40) to hopefully help in not attracting sieges so people can continue to come and go easily. It does seem really silly to have sieges in the starter areas IMO makes for a very frustrating introduction to the game.

 

Maybe the first soldier you see can give you directions on how to bypass the combat?

 

He does

 

Perhaps the soldiers could have planted small flags which would mark the way out. That would be a realistic way to mark the path out of the siege.

 

I encountered this last night while doing a siege. I met a Visitor who was getting smashed. The poor fellow thought he was was in Aerie and was being killed repeatedly while looking for the guy to turn his quest into. I led him through to the other side and explained that he was in fact in a siege. A little later on, I saw another dead Visitor in the Aerie Siege - This fellow didn't log in again

Bring on the outskirts quickly!

 

Good opening post. Welcome to SOTA!

 

When you enter the Forest Siege from the overworld map, there is indeed a guy who gives you a tip. He is standing off to the left, and says you can skirt the battle to avoid it. Since you see palisades ahead, indicating battle action, you take the left path to exit the siege.

When you enter the Forest Siege from a town, there is no guy. Instead there is a fight going on in front of you and mercenaries are cringing and crying in fear in their camp to the right. If a new player makes the mistake of taking the left path again (like I did the first time), he ends up dead. After you are familiar with the scene, you recognize each side of the scene and know which way to go, but a new player has only a 50-50 chance to pick the "safe" path.

And sometimes there is NO "safe" path. The Cabalists are sometimes fighting right at the entrance. A new player is dead before he knows what hit him.

There should be a safe zone where players can leave the scene without encountering a Cabalist.

 

Idea: Why don't we let low level players bypass a siege completely? Not until they are level x will they encounter a siege when entering a town.

From an immersion standpoint: low-level players might be deemed too insignificant for the cabal to harass.

 

When the sieges was introduced, I happened to have just re-created a new character (new character on brand new $40 account).
Since this was the first time the sieges were implemented, there were plenty of high-level players around.
With those many people around me willing to fight together (and invite into party), it was wonderful way to introduce the sieges and get befriended with new people.

So sieges in starter town is not bad, as long as the game is fully populated with other players.

You could add a "rallying point" (a tent) at the start of the Siege map that will show remaining Siege time, and also allow experienced players to pick up newbies (and may be notify Hospitalers in the region)

 

Place several skeletons (remains of dead ) along the more dangerous route