What new players experience

This should be required watching for everyone. This is the only experience most people walk away with; they never will see much more than this.

 

Some interesting points of course. The lost and confused can be easily addressed by a better journal and better explanations in this game. Hopefully the game will address that soon. I think the reviewer tried to be fair from his limited knowledge of the game but truly he missed so much, but of course not the point. First experience is very important feedback that this game needs to address.

 

This player had a bit better of a time

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I truly think a little bit more time needs to be spent on those starting areas to help onboard newbies because a lot of them are missing out on the fun aspects of the game.

 

Or offer an better wiki...
Most games offer an newbie area with weak enemies and such where you can make errors, but earn not much exp either.

I would do that too for sota, right now you are tossed into battle pretty much out of the crib.

But the falling issue... really, skill based game? I read the frigging skill tree, in detail, naturally, and invest into safe fall.

 

I thought he had a good point tho about picking mage and ending up on the courage quest right away.

 

I think it is, yes, at first annoying to an degree, but longterm as soon you learn that all three questlines are open to you not so much an issue....
Maybe people today feel kinda entitled to very easy accesss "to it all"

I am still used to thick manuals for games one needs an few hours to read through before playing an game the first time at all, and that it takes some time to become pro at it, and that the beginning can be frustrating, but later you chuckle at how silly you where as n00b.

I mean, compared to the UO series or UO online this is an cakewalk. (that could be improved, yes, but still.... kinda first world issue)

 

I only bring it up because looking at our steam numbers alone, it's obvious we have a problem attracting and retaining players. the numbers should really be going up but they're static.

 

The "slower combat" mention in the video is one I thought stood out. I love so many aspects and features in SotA, but there were a couple periods where the learning curve mixed with slow/clunky low level combat was very much not what I was used to from the last handful of fantasy rpgs/mmorpgs I've played in recent years.

Lack of speed, attack animations taking a while, getting caught on every 6" rock or incline while running, waiting on those 3 second cooldowns before being able to toggle a new ability... there were a couple times I was considering not sticking with the game. Not a happy choice, so many awesome features but I was iffy on how clumsy/slow I felt in combat.

I am happy to report that I think things got quite a bit smoother, faster and effortless around maybe level 50. Though I'm fearful a lot of players won't give it that long to finally feel a good degree of effortlessness, control and speed. I want to see the game succeed and am uncertain how this particular play issue can be polished for new players who might make this a longterm game if they stick with it through the first period.

 

I do not get that "slow combat" thing.
For my feel combat in Sota is unloading as much dps as quickly as possible and heck for tactics.
For my taste combat could be much slower and tactical moves have waaaay more importance.
I mean, type of wepaon, enemy skills, magic resists and weaknesses, knowing who you fight and how, yes, for an very limited degree it is there but not of that importance.


You unload dps and thats about it.

 

I also gave it a try starting as a mage and the focus regen with no food or devotionals is brutal.

You also have to walk from the boat at the river to the elf camp and it takes a while with the focus issues and getting encumbered.

Some quests or direction about using food or finding devotionals, like the Honor one in Kiln, I think would be very helpful.

 

It is not just for the new players we need to address this but for the game. Going to starting areas and giving them better directions does not address that this game does not have some basic mmo (and hopefully rpg feel added to them)things to it.

We continue to struggle with journal entries and who said what, when, and where are they? While that is what some players love others find it frustrating. How to address things like this for both types of players is important in the implementation and in the long run it may step on some toes for those in disagreement.

Having the ability to track one quest perhaps instead of the game adding the sparkles we add the pointers by tracking a particular and have more options to find our way.

A journal that has tabs for quests, achievements (that need to be added still), help, tasks, completed quests, world events, and more shown in these examples.

So no band-aid is going to fix this. We need a new system. If someone does not want to track or read then that is fine but for the good of the game we need to address things like this soon.

edited.

 

It would be better having new players start out in one of the more active Pots.

 

Careful, the new user experience areas are already the best developed areas in the game. SOTA is already at a mild risk of getting a reputation as a bait and switch on Steam where many scammy titles promise 40 or more hours of gameplay but run out of content shortly after the refund period ends.

 

I don't understand
I been playing for years and there are so many things I have not done.

 

Not sure how you run out of content before 40 hours are up. It took me longer than that to finish the storylines, and that was with being focused on doing just that... never mind ALL of the content that exists outside of the main story.

 

These are examples from some of my favorite games. I think this would be a welcomed addition to SotA. I think if we can raise another 20 million we will be on par with these major games. I know ESO and FFXIV have departments as big as the entire SotA team dedicated to UI and Quest Journals.

 

Since Steam implemented a refund system, many scammy titles have front loaded their content in the first few hours to run out the refund clock only to have the game grind to a halt almost immediately thereafter. I don't think SOTA is doing this, but the difference been the new player areas and all the other scenes in the game is rather stark.