SOTA Basic Training Programs

~What's Your Way of Training New Players? Here's My Example~

~Inch By Inch, Step By Step and the Story of BART the Turtle~



~Player Resources~
General's Patton and Montgomery had these two things presented to them, yet both had differing views based on resources they had at their disposal. Gen. Patton had a greater amount of bodies to place to the front steaming in from the USA, while Gen. Montgomery had fewer Thus one had more ferocity within his tactics than the other. We as players also have our own supplies of usable energy through our natural real life dexterity within our fingers and even our mental faculties. Also we have a certain amount of tech equipment wars, macros, key sets yet excluding most bots where a certain key set is engaged through the more simple press of a single button. "Some of us have more or less of all of the above at our disposal".
Equal playing fields are never the answer for such things, yet practice and motive are. Currently we haven't any real Easter Egg economic motives that have enough allure to motivate many players to move into the extreme current limits of our game. I personally don't want to travel there just now, because this then limits deeper examination into all the bridges available and what they could afford us. It would be very difficult for the bulk of our incoming future players to best learn in easy fashion our game, because there are few players that have examined those early points of player evolution time and again themselves. I believe I now have deleted and reformed around 8 (maybe more) times within these last two releases to closely examine this early proses, yet I haven't still been able to begin each pathway in our skills. This is the biggest reason why the ~TL~ has been nearing the top of the number of critter killing list lately.

~The Nature of Compelling~
Two examples of opposing views of the compelling...
Gen. MacArthur described leadership as this; "Military leadership is art of influencing and directing men in such a way as to gain their willing obedience, confidence and respect in order to accomplish the mission."
Gen Eisenhower described leadership as this; "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to get something you want done, because they want to do it."
One of these is the forcing of the participant and the other is the self motivated.

I don't ever mind sharing what I've learned with others, because the ~TL~RP~ character in Ultima basically began as a serial kidnapper bringing players into our adventuring world. Thus I believe I owe it to our continuing SOTA to stay that original course before Hawkwind. Looking for the small and the odd, yet never at the front of anything, thus follows my motives...

~Time Lord's Basic Adventure Readiness Training~ (The B.A.R.T.)
The BART right now consists of core value easy to understand patterns of skill gain success based on development of the player to further engage the interface once they can't stand to wait any further. Much like a archer's bow, the further you hold back, the more quick the arrow once it leaves the bow. Some players will be overwhelmed by the interface, as it's not an Xbox or Nintendo. The BART is designed to have the player slowly get better acquainted with the interface, while still making their way forward in skill gains that will help excel them faster than others. The longer they can wait, or the longer they need to wait while sticking with the simple BART path instructions, the more this core training aides them in the future. Aide that I might add, will help the tech computer challenged player better compete within the more tech savvy or key board adept players. Those types of players that are challenged with our interface may or may not be able to be the "end all be all" Avatar on the battlefield, yet they will be skilled enough and ready enough to stand along side our greater combat players.

~Riding BART the Turtle~
"Playing any game is a whack a mole", yet all whack a moles are different. A new player can play our game by simply standing in front of monsters and animals and just allowing the character to whack those monsters with whatever weapon stick they have, which is the most basic and simple our game controls will ever be. If this path is taken, then a lock on other interface skills allows the player to rise in innate skills which will aide them in the future, once they begin to get use to, or have more understanding our card based interface. Our card based interface is the hallmark of our combat and therefore, by allowing such a training as the BART to continue to exist by current skill locking or maintaining, the player can feel more welcomed in. Our card based system had a rocky beginning when it came to player feedback, yet excelled in player satisfaction once the cards were better understood and interfaced with. The beginnings of understanding came with the ability to lock cards and then further try out the more advanced random card issue display.
In riding BART the Turtle, all skills but the innate become locked inside the shell of the players own limited faculties in dealing with the more complex game and thereby becoming reserved once the player slowly brings them out of the shell to try them. Yet all the while, those innate skills are rising much faster than they would if that same player had attempted using all the interface, successfully or with frustration in being forced to having to deal with all of them.

~Lock All Your Active Skills But the Innate and Follow Me~
These are simple to understand instructions which almost mimic the actions of our characters in UO, where when something comes close to you, our character would then begin whacking them when in combat mode. In our SOTA and by following the BART's easy to understand interface, then the top of that monster scale that can be defeated becomes the Patriarch Bear. It's very hard to do if you wish to take one just by whacking it without the use of any cards and this is the point where it's time to get off BART the Turtle and begin using the defensive cards, if the player hasn't already done so. Our defensive card usage is the leader to further using attack cards. While attempting to take this bear, the new player has learned much in the usage and getting use to using our cards... (fin) So ends the story of BART the Turtle... Unlock all your skills and happy adventuring to you Avatar!

Just like these I have said, our experience bar is just one motivator. Yet when a carrot instead of a restriction of skills is employed, the player at some point is further motivated to enter more deeply into our game. A player using what I have described as BART the Turtle (names are really not important but the simple proses is) would be killing massive amounts of smaller critters, yet once everything becomes unlocked outside that shell, Eisenhower's words then have out witted MacArthur's restrictive reasoning as the compelling motivator to continue further.

I hope that provides some insight into the small simple player and the power of the small to become much larger...
Just an opinion and other opinions well welcomed in good rhetoric...
BART the Turtle LoL *rolls his eyes*
~Time Lord~

 

Hmmm. The title of the third last paragraph is:
~Lock All Your Active Skills But the Innate and Follow Me~

But the last sentence in this paragraph is:
Unlock all your skills and happy adventuring to you Avatar!

Now I understand that you suggest starting off by locking active skills, you then progress to the point where you want to kill a big bear, and at that point you will want to start unlocking some of the locked skills, or using cards, or perhaps both.

But the suggestion to unlock "all" skills confuses me. I admit I am easily confused, but can you clear this up for me?

Also, what is on the stick that is being held out in front of the turtle? See, I told you I was easily confused

Good article. Thanks for posting it.

Regards

 

~BART~
For me, it's about;
If you lock everything but innate skills, then all the innate go up much faster... Therefore after, just follow whatever trail, whoever your following takes you. Then after it's complete, at whatever point the new adventurer wishes to track off on their own, then just remind them to unlock everything before leaving or heading off into the wilds of our game.

My trails of beginning hunting are; Kingsroad, followed by Valeway, West Ravenswood, North Ravenswood, South Ravenswood, Greymark Forest and ending with Deep Ravenswood... all located on Hidden Vale Island.

I also prefer to use (for instance) the swordsman begins each hunting ground with their sward until it becomes easy to them, and then they need to use a knife at the same place until that is easy to them before heading off to the next location, then repeat the same again.

The above takes only a few trips to each place in order to complete training there while hunting.

If they were a pole arm player, they would need to do the same thing, yet when it became easy then switch to a wand and beat everything to death.

I haven't experimented with bows and arrows, so I have no opinion that would be fist hand knowledge of how to proceed.

I try to keep it simple to understand with as few words as possible, so condensing the instructions would look like this;

~The Way~
1) Lock all skills other than the grey innate skills.
2) Go to Kingsroad with a sward and kill everything there.
3) Return to Kingsroad with a knife and kill everything there.
4) Continue down this list of places repeating the same proses; Valeway, West Ravenswood, North Ravenswood, South Ravenswood, Greymark Forest, and ending with Deep Ravenswood.
5) At some point anywhere along that trail you feel you are ready to unlock your action skills, then do so and begin their usage.

With those 5 steps of instructions, your character should be ready to continue your adventuring to wherever you wish to travel to.... "but remembering to unlock all your skills before leaving these training instructions"... because you're on your own then.
After completing this short proses, the adventurer should be about to GM their first innate skill of "Blade Combat"...

I post this here because we instructive helping players need to come up with or share our own ways to help our new players in the most easy and swift way possible for those that need initial help.
I encourage others to do the same, as soon our world will be filling with lots and lots of players, which means that close personal instructions of single players needs to be defined so those trainers can help many more.

~From The Turtle Farm~
I do hope this helps and I do hope others add their comments and ideas...
Right or wrong any comment well invited indeed my friends!


@Rhudaur (I think that's a hotdog on the end of that stick)
~Time Lord~

 

This doesn't sound like 'basic' training. That is more along the lines of how to min max skill gain.

Which sounds much more like the third or fourth combat lesson.

Wouldn't the 'basic' combat lesson be 'hit them with the sharp end', or in our case Z and the difference between click attack and auto attack or some such?


Although I usually simply ask what they think is fun and list activities.

 

I had some ideas about that...I did help new players, standing in Resolute while playing the lute and answering questions.

Then, this forum made sure I understood this is a single player game. And since then, I answer every single question I get from new players when I'm logged in with: "your wrong, this is a single player game, get used to finding your way around alone." Having to learn this is a single players game did hurt and it was a hard pill to swallow. It honestly was, but at least I can help new players understanding this from day one, not that they have to go the long way like I did.

 

~The Prophesies of an Avatar's Time Lord~

~The Familiar of SOTA~
There's much that seems familiar in our SOTA, yet is not, "and yes indeed @Spoon , this is a generic game's min max", yet such things as this bring the player to a place where they have built their confidence to a point where they can take very good care of themselves in a familiar way that they may be use to from other games, while they tippy toe into our much deeper SOTA environment. In remembering all those early arguments of the cards and why this is not the same as UO or WoW, the BART's intent is to provide a sort of UO/WoW instruction model of grind that such "objecting players" could bridge their disappointments by literally skipping over those issues. Once our new player has done some of these familiar things, our card system and more compelling content could have them hooked to forget those psy-hooks which still bind them to their other games.
I expect an overwhelming amount of players to begin showing up this year and even few months from now, possibly so much so, that our trainers, helpers and guild representatives may not be able to provide as much personal attention as they may need or wish to provide.

~Here Comes the Flash'... PvP Guilds!~
"How Many People Per Instance?!!!"... omg is coming!...
Many of our current guilds and some we haven't even yet seen so much such as "Mostly Harmless" could and most likely will be booming in membership numbers from the coming influx. PvP guilds should see their numbers also rise dramatically, which will add much flavor to an otherwise flavorless PvP environment for lack of player numbers. I believe that aiding our early PvP Guilds is vital to the success of our SOTA, because this too has been a subject matter that came well under fire in our early forum's rhetorical battles... battles I might add, that literally filled our entire discussions of almost anything one desired to say of our game, "this isn't a PvP game" becoming a "Debby Downer" anthem.
Our current guilds would do well to be out recruiting less they miss the coming tide! I've had the pleasure even today of such a wise guild's move in avid recruitment by way of offer of training. (Grand Show EVL, keep it up!)... Yet with such flash, even the largest of our current guilds will find there personal person's taxed to their hilt with the training of others, thus the need for such quick ready training in the most simple and elementary forms are quite necessary, especially for our PvP guilds to hold dominance within our world. We need for fewer guilds so as to condense our PvP organized battles, indeed they need to become individual armies in great numbers for any "Grand SOTA come play with us events". If such condensing does not occur, then battles are sparse and likened to the quick duels we see now and in our past.

~Trade Wars and Our Flash Trade Guilds~
One feeds the other, yet trade guild wars can get bloody when those trade guilds that haven't actively made trade connections with one or more of the super power PvP guilds, the small and unconnected could find themselves killed out of a vital resource because that or those resources could be only found within PvP zones, which would then become those protected and restricted places of power the PvP guilds would all be contending for... contention I might add again, that may come sooner than later and with greater force than we now see within our current sleepy SOTA crafting world. Even in our Non-PvP areas, larger trade guilds can wipe out smaller resources within high volume player time zones, leaving those players from those time zones with less if they have not band together in some way, through POT, Guild or otherwise friendly relations with some larger trade community. This is where BART comes into play as well, because BART produces raw resources killing all those lots and lots of small critters, thus providing the more advanced craftsman without the need to go hunting those resources up themselves thus keeping them at their crafting tables for higher profit and weaponry. With higher weaponry comes a time when our founder and benefactor weapons which are protected become obsolete being overtaken in power by finer crafted from our craftsman and tradesman.... thus the vital need of the PvP Guilds to also make connections with an exclusive trade guild, because the PvP'er falls behind the dedicated crafter in skills and resources.

~There Ain't No Rest For the Wicked~

This is truly all our guild's current situation and those that will fall behind. Our online multi player game may seem like a single player game right now, and could and will be played like that for some, yet there's strength in numbers, and power in numbers, and profit in numbers! So when it comes to needing the fire below to have a continuing stock of raw resources both in number of bodies and number of resources, something like BART helps those fire grow more quickly... which our game needs to be called a success on the computer gaming markets, with sparks flying from the trade and PvP wars it creates.

BART by any other name, is intended to fulfill those needs of beating the hare to the finish line...
I hope there becomes more BART out there that deal with archery and magery as I've only had time to examine weaponry having remade my chr 6-8 times during the last two releases in order to study and refine a most simple way of training many in as short a time as possible with benefits that return to fuel such booms as PvP and Trade.



Comments, additions, rhetoric and any comments at all of anything are more than welcomed openly to respond...
You're a keen mind @Spoon !
~Time Lord~

 

I'm not sure where or how you come to this conclusion, but I know a lot of people that probably wont even look at the single player side of this. If you fall victim to the pleas of those that want to make it a us vs you then I am sorry you feel that way. Bottom line is there is offline where you play with yourself and enjoy the game, and there is online where you play with those of us that want to play with friends, and meet new people. Don't let it get you in a slump with the us vs them crap..Play how you want, where you want, when you want. That is your right.

 

Thanks for the reply Time Lord. I had thought that maybe there was a better word or phrase than "all," like "all wanted active skills" or something. But I see what you mean. And Kristof's suggestion is a good one I think.

The turtle picture gave me a laugh, so thanks for that

Regards

 

~Is BART Useful at All, and if So How?~
This to me has always been the objectives of my testing.

I'm still at this point wondering and questioning if a BART actually makes any difference in the advancement of any character over another that has just opened up all skills and let the skills develop naturally.
It may be something that only benefits our too young to play the game in it's fullest, such as a young family member, challenged person of their keyboard abilities, or UO addictedness to another game's interface.

I deleted my last chr again today, to further investigate any ways a player could advance themselves faster than normal... which seems to me almost a placebo when taking into account relative str of each character. Within these two presented in this post;
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...-chrs-skill-building.47802/page-2#post-540728
"Yes the latest character seemed a better or matching ability to cause enough damage to the goal of killing a patriarch bear, yet between the first and the latest, by the amount of str (which I failed to list in the post's examples) were far different in an odd way. The first chr was much stronger, having gained str while using many other skills, all unlocked, while the latest had a much smaller amount of str, which effects the chr's in far different ways when receiving damage. That is to say that, "when the latest chr was hit, hit received a greater hit because of lack of str when compared with the first". Yet the latest did avoid more critical hits, but when those critical hits did land, having less str did make a difference.

Until I'm satisfied that some training system is what it needs to be and is clearly understood by practicing it by me, I will never present anything like the BART as a perfect. Currently, BART does have some values of skills gained in a short time, yet lacks in str building, which I feel has some time base to it.

(OT: One thing I have learned throughout this, is that the new bodies of our characters have far different looks to them. The new body looks great in dark black, glows in the dark when light is shined upon it in the brightest white *it's like being your own lamp post* , yet both faces are too ugly to bare.... This latest ~Nystal TimeLord~ chr has a long nose and Hispanic tan, which doesn't look too bad for a cartoon character as "Cyrano de' Bergerac"

~Time Lord~