They probably have no coin, no skills from levels and no idea what theyre doing (i say that but I dont know what im doing either XD) and lets assume cant reach a region exp area due to lack of atmosphere protection or just plain not aware I dont know.
So how can one help the new player experience…?
Not necessarily the best but my answer was to get them affordable 3x3 tool to level with.
I picked soil / sand because its lowest hp, thus cheaper weapon needed and leaves gems as progression later.
with 0 power, 0 tool masteries and no damage epic:
A titanium shovel with lvl 4 damage would do the trick. sitting at 800 dmg
The same shovel will work on hard blocks after 5 points in tool mastery and the tool epic, sitting at 1200 dmg
if they have more coin / want to stick with dirt then using a silver 3x3 3dmg and 7stamina allows for a teaching pie to speed it further but only works for soil/foliage and no regen bomb use.
so with 18 skill points (Which I think is level 5), between the tool masteries 8 dex and base speed of titanium you get I think 63. just barely enough to cap with speed brew if they can afford, energy can be solved with starberry food like normal.
The problem with that is:
1: Is it worth their time to shovel dirt / sand until they can get some skill points? Its a grind if they dont even break even on cost, and making the first step a grind doesnt sound good but nor is leveling to a decent level the hard way.
2: Where do they get sufficient initial coin?
3: Even if I manage to make it affordable, how to get it in the hands of brand new chars with no knowledge of the game and cant even reach my shop? If they CAN reach my shop they can probably reach a region exp.
4: The shovel will probably be less efficient cost wise than a regular t1 shovel because I am adding dmg, where as a player with a skill set can use something else like speed or durability for same cost. Not necessarily a bad thing to deter bargain hunters.
5: Even if this is a good idea they dont know to do it.
of course I personally don’t need to supply or sell these all, people could just make it available in their own t1/t2 starter world shops making the chance of them finding one better, then brand new chars just need a place to shovel and a place to sell what they dug up.
Oooor do people have a better idea and I am wasting my time with this.
well sure, yes… but most people label their hammers t1 expecting a full skill page?
right?
Given I don’t know what tier is equivalent hammer would be for a no skill page.
What they said. Doing the tutorial and journal objectives teach you the game. They just need to be made more intuitive.
Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to help new players.
but if I buy a t1 hammer from a shop, I am expected to have all necessary dmg skills right?
I dont think dmg epic unlocks that earlier than finising tutorial I think… Dont remember for sure though.
no one ever ive seen labels it otherwise…?
I’m stepping out to work, but I’m curious - is your focus more on leveling, or coins?
This will get you coins but you will get much better XP if you process your raw materials.
Also TBH, I tried to start a fresh character once to look more specifically at finances and learned that at the lowest levels I was more profitable with copper than the titanium that I didn’t have skills to really use properly.
You’re going to have to double your speed and waste a lot more coins (tools) to produce the same output over time if you’re going for speed before damage
I deleted that. LOL I’ll try and make a more helpful response. Boundless is actually pretty well-balanced. The title is about leveling but the talk quickly turns to coin and the thing is that @SWProzee1 is 100% correct about coins. And all the other comments as well.
To your example of an isolated player, learning/starting to get around, experience is more of a concern than coins, even though coins seem very sparse in the starting game. It’s counter-productive to push forwards with gear too quickly, in that it’s wasteful in terms of return on your investment.
Here’s a quote from the thread on that character I mentioned before. A bit of analysis - there’s more in the thread but I left that character quickly because it was clear that he could afford gear well before he could make proper use of it:
In the end, I guess my point is that it’s important, in terms of leveling, what you want to do. Because there isn’t “the way”. You can level nearly as fast placing the right blocks as you can XP farming blocks or hunting in a big gang.
The best coins come from low XP activities, tedious grind, and selling XP. Or pick your favorite combo of the 3
So here’s some “generic” advice, I guess. For someone who wants to level up specifically.
Don’t worry about coins. Coins will come.
Break stuff.
Save everything. Discard Nothing. At the very least, everything is coin.
Learn what you can do with things and do that, too. Compact it. Extract it. Smelt it. Refine it.
You will have levels quickly. And plenty of coin to advance. You still have to learn the markets etc… and that’s going to take a minute anyways. Only if you refuse to do anything but build in survival would I personally recommend pursuing building techniques for leveling because they work best with expensive materials.
Thats true, I think I personally wanted levels but that was me, doesnt apply to everyone nor would a specific method.
/concede.
But I think I made an error presenting an idea without the proper context of why I presented it.
Let me change the question a bit.
How would you foster a better experience for (not necessarily but ideally new) players (note I am not saying its bad, but theres always room for improvement right?). For example, I think people were teaching forging, people were/are doing beginner hunts, theres a farm school, theres trade tracker, forge simulator, pigment color mixer thingies, theres exp farms, resource farms, portal hubs etc etc etc.
Is there anything else you wish existed ? = Root of my reason posting BUT I just jumped into my idea of having a tool for 0 exp characters and was basically trying to know if its a good or bad idea or how can I make it work. yes I can put it in a shop and just let it be but I overthink.
Sorry if I agitated people. I dont think I presented this well ^^;
Nah it’s not agitation, it’s just a broader topic than it can seem. As a sandbox it’s true that there are a few paths to any goal. I mention game balance because when done well you don’t end up with a single, game dominating meta to min/max and we don’t really have that here.
There’s a somewhat recent thread about leveling techniques with some comparisons and videos, IIRC (I didn’t review the whole thread today) and probably some links to other references. Some of them generate more coins than others and it’s important to take note of follow up processing. People often just fall back on mining for coins and processing rocks for extra XP because it’s easy to explain and “fuels both fires” so to speak.
But if I’m giving advice I always point out that you need to keep and process all of your materials. There’s huge markets (I mean relatively) for raw materials in this game, and some finished products, and over time you will not that there’s not a lot of in between market for semi-processed materials.
This is because there’s a great deal of experience involved in the processing of stuff. Enough that our markets show higher prices for raw materials than intermediate products in many cases, even ignoring the energy costs (spark, heat) used in the processing.
Just some more thoughts on the matter. Powerful tools for new players can help with retention for some, and drive others off. That’s another heavily discussed topic but I’ve run into my time limit again.
In any case, I’m not frustrated by what you said or asked it’s just that these aren’t a collection of things that are simple to address all at once.
I chased some objectives and feats first as a new player, got me coin and some xp early on. Loved exploring and getting lost, so giving players a quick way to get home from santum without using coin… Oh they did that sry lol.
I think a simple “buff” that lasts say 7 days (like the guild buffs) for a brand new character, that increases xp gain by at least 25% would be a good way to get skills and levels to new players early. If that is communicated to the player, it will offer a little bit of drive to hopefully get over the learning curve of the game. It took me about 10hours of gameplay to get over the initial learning curve, and i was doing feats and objectives…
Plus the skill revamp from testing would be a welcome addition if I’m honest. That would make leveling afterwards more intuitive i feel. I honestly like our current skill system, but i can see why the revamped one would feel more welcoming to some players, and there are still choices that make some of your skills feel more important…
Well @Monumental has said that the first area they plan to work on is the New Player Experience. The skill revamp would be nice, but @Wonderstruck in their “wisdom” has made it an integral part of the overall release that was to include the local universe, which are as yet unfinished.
If the skill revamp and new weapons/shields could have been a separate patch from the local universe, that would be wonderful. I would be just as happy if we never got the local universe.
@Mercutio604 When I first started, I probably spent my first 2 weeks just exploring and learning the game. Once through the tutorial and having my atlas, I set out and fully explored the planet I had landed on. A chance to see the sights, gain some region experience, and have a fully mapped planet (Raxxa).
The skill system drove me nuts as a new player. Everything was zooming along fine until I hit level 19, and then you basically get locked into doing one thing for 10 or 15 (or more) levels. That is around the same time the leveling slows down and higher tier tools start looking attractive, especially if you pick mining as the one thing you are going to do with your limited skills. Googling the leveling brought me to youtube videos suggesting making new characters to get around the wall, which just leaves you trying to level multiple characters instead of one character. Since there are no real differences between characters, this just felt like a slog.
At this point I’ve gotten used to the skill system, but I think any look at the NPE needs to take a look at that to see if it can’t be made more new player friendly.
Doing the tutorial and journal objectives teach you the game. They just need to be made more intuitive.
