Solace Outskirts playthrough

Went pretty smooth, it's come a long way.

The wounded ghost has a habit of closing the dialog box, but it doesn't cause problems.

Still think it needs someone to explicitly say "you can hold down your skill to charge it" because by the time they are finishing (took a few hours) if they haven't figured that out, then the combat is going to seem very bland compared to what it really is.

 

Hmm. I went straight to using a mix of locked and dynamic glyphs, still never charge anything intentionally. Combat never struck me as bland at all, quite the opposite. But then, I also prefer exploring to killing, so I can't presume what a more combat-oriented player would think.

 

And how did you learn about locked vs unlocked?

 

It was a while ago now, don't remember for sure. Probably just saw the little padlock, unclicked it, and trial-and-error'd. I don't think Anais ever covered that, and while I've tried to skim the instructions each release, I've only looked at the subtopics most likely to be of proximate use for me -- which means I never really paid much attention to the combat section. (I remember being confused the first time I died and not knowing how to resurrect.) Pretty sure I just figured it out. That was one of the things I was worried about, coming into a game that was trying to be more of an MMO for the first time, that the combat would be too predominant and too complicated for me (the last combat game I played regularly was Might and Magic III), and I was pleasantly surprised that it was pretty intuitive.

But again, as an explorer, I just want a system that's easy and allows me to defend myself in a fashion appropriate for the character's personality, and I'm happy to learn the more advanced aspects of the system slowly, bit by bit. I'm not looking to chase after high-level monsters any time soon; someone who likes that sort of thing will have different needs. I think it would make perfect sense to have a "combat trainer" specifically, rather than a generic "adventuring trainer", if not in the Outskirts, then in Ardoris, for people who do want the advanced skills quickly -- as long as it was optional, and not one of those things you can't finish the scene without. But I'm not a fan of throwing lots of new information at people too quickly; people need to be able to learn what's interesting to them at their own pace, and most people find learning in increments easier, which is why I'm wary of teaching advanced techniques in the Outskirts.

 

Great, I think you've proven my point. Trial and error is not the right way to get people to use one of the main aspects of combat.

So I'm going stick with the suggestion to have an NPC in the outskirts that says "You can hold down the key to charge your skills". Maybe an automoton. If they become the tutorial bots, that will be useful.