Started a new Avatar - and here are my comments

Decided to start a new Avatar to see the changes made so far to the new player experience. All in all - I can tell lots of work has been given to this area - however I do have comments about things that didn't go so well.

Arriving in Highvale:

1. Samuel needs to walk a little faster since he should be in a hurry and following him at his current pace is really painful

2. The dialog from Samuel once he gets to Gawain needs to be sped up as well. Once he completed his examination of Gawain there was way too much time before he continued the conversation with my avatar. In fact, he came over to my avatar but said nothing. I had to click on him to continue the discussion with him. This seems awkward and a bit strange. Maybe he could go to the Avatar and immediately comment about the situation with maybe response of Thank You as a selection for the Avatar to Samuel.

Arriving in Resolute:

1. When talking with Brigid in Resolute there isn’t an easy, plain way to continue the conversation. I ended up in a loop with her acting as if I hadn’t told her about Gawain. I wonder if we have too many options available for responses with talking with her. There wasn't a natural flow when I clicked on most of the words available.

2. Returned Gawain’s Amulet of Testimony but the Quest did not complete. It is still in the Journal and is still showing on the screen as a task to complete.

3. I know visiting the bank is mentioned at the very beginning of the game, but it probably would be a good idea to mention it again once the avatar reaches their first town. Maybe put it on their Task List to remind them to find the bank and either deposit what they have picked up so far or withdraw rewards they might have (like decent armor or weapons). They may be expecting their rewards to be in their inventory so a reminder wouldn't hurt.

The Adventure Trainer:

1. First attempt did not work and I was unable to ‘train’. The Skills screen appeared but did not allow me to interact with it. I closed it and opened it again and it then worked.

2. Concern: So here I am with 82 points in Blades when I don’t want to use a blade with my Avatar. I would like to be trained in Polearms but can’t because I only have 10 point there and need 30 in order to be trained. Maybe we should give the Avatar a one-time free re-set of Adventure Points on their first visit to a Trainer. Same with Heavy Armor – I had no choice but to put on the one piece of armor I picked up off a slain person in order to protect me as I went through Highvale and it happened to be Heavy. Now I have 20 points in Heavy Armor when I might want to actually use Light Armor on this Avatar. Either allow for a reset or don’t apply points at all until the first visit to a Trainer. Make us decide then about our initial points (light or heavy armor and a weapon type). We certainly can change or add later but would like to see us allow the player to start fresh.

3. I went to the Trainer again and no one was downstairs - everyone was upstairs asleep. Maybe we should be locking the door when no one is available to help us rather than leaving it open while the folks sleep. Also I was able to go upstairs and interact with the Trainer (conversations and being trained) while she was in the bed. That probably should not happen.

4. That little Question Mark Icon on the Skills screen is a bit small and may get over-looked. Once I clicked on it the Text Box appeared and explained some about skills.

Inconsistencies with Help:

I click on the Damaged Equipment Icon at the top right of the screen and a small text box opens next to it explaining about my damaged equipment. I click on the Encumbered Icon right next to it and no small text box appears. Instead the Chat Box opens with lots of info there about encumbrance. We need to either use a text box pop up for all of these or use the Chat Window for all of them. But we need to be consistent.

Well, that's it for today. Will try to play more on the new player tomorrow and will start a new post if other items show up. Right now I suppose I am not sure what to do as a new player. I am trying not to use my knowledge / experience from playing this game for several years to help guide me to what to do next. I knew where the Oracle was in Resolute so talked with him/her and that didn't guide me to what I might do next. Not suggesting 'hand-holding' simply because I don't want to get shot by lots of the Community but a small nudge in some direction might help me get out of Resolute and off to some real adventure. I suppose this won't be an issue when all new Avatars start at the same place with the extended play area, so this is probably a moot point.

 

This is a big concern of mine as well. Why tie your starting weapon to the Oracle? Put the weapons on a weapon rack and grab what you grab, and use what you use!

Or try them all. If you get points going into different things, that's your choice. If you get 81 points into something you don't like because the Oracle so deemed it, that's the Devs fault.

As I keep restarting, I often like to grab a mace and shield. Mace levels up, shield doesn't.

If it were me I would open all 1st row combat skills, put every weapon type at the start, and let that be the "character creation" process. You grabbed 2 daggars from the weapon rack and started using them, great! Spear shield? Great!

 

If you're not sure, I would suggest getting into the Outskirts. I'm not sure if any but Solace are open, so make a new character and choose Bow. Then test the heck out of it, because it's coming online tomorrow!

 

In R40 when I started I went to the Oracle right after character creation - I really liked the Oracle conversation about choosing different paths - and if I chose a path and didn't like the weapon for that virtue (I think Courage is blades) she gave me a chance during the conversation of changing to another one (which would send me to a different starting area). At least that's how it was for me in R40. But I haven't tried R41 - is there now more fighting before meeting the Oracle? (I know of the Outskirts addition, just not sure where it fits in during the new experience.) Then it would definitely make sense to allow a new avatar to grab a weapon of his/her choice.

 

@Serena Strangelove It's the same as you knew before. And while I do like those kinds of test, there's a few problems with it.

First, the answers don't actually correspond in any way to what you then get advised on. What does giving a beggar money have to do with if you're a mage or a ranger? Are only rangers going to give money to beggars? Just an example, I don't know how it plays out.

In Jagged Alliance, you could get the general idea of where you were heading. Choose answers about killing people by hand, get more melee points. Choose answers about NOT killing people, get more charisma.

But worse is that there are a whole lot of unserved skills in this test. You can ONLY start out with Blades, Ranged, or Fire Magic (I believe it's fire magic, could be wrong.)

That leaves anyone wanting to start with polearms, bludgon, shields, the opposite armor type of what they go, and all the magic schools except fire totally screwed. That's like 10 other player starting builds, while only serving 3.

So while the initial test is interesting and fun, it doesn't really sync up with what a player may actually WANT to do.

Now, the initial test might be great at putting the player in a starting location, if they get those starting locations to match up with what the test asked of them. But as it is it really limits early game playstyle choice.