Coffey
Well-known member
This sounds hellish. To each their own though lol.
Why do beginners give up the game? Why so few players?
- Thread starter Bolseiro do Condado
- Start date
Weazlelips
Well-known member
Ok wiki is only source.so **** on that one.(seems forums arent a source of late)
Yes wow asks you to buy..but if you buy last you have access to all previos..not all games double charge you.
Dark age of Camelot..all access with sub
SWTOR all acces with a sub.
Played em both. Both had easier learning curve.
Runescape..while old..all access with sub. Eve online..all access with sub.
And others as well, many i dont play.
While possibilites are one thing..making the mechanics ambiguios is another matter entirely.
Ryiah
Well-known member
We actually have two wikis. I don't remember why.
Also just in case it hasn't been linked yet you can still access the old forum.
Elder Scrolls Online too.
dur
Paladin. Disruptor. Since the 1970s
Because Wiki is "run" by players who are not necessarily (mostly, not) paid? AND DDO is an MMO that constantly changes? Yeah, those are not questions, just mild sarcasm and fact. The fanbase runs any Wiki.
If one is playing a game for 20(+) years, maybe there's something to it.
Sounds VERY familiar; but WoW is it's own, right? Whereas SSG has ...other games that could shoulder losses - or, perhaps, the gains of DDO propelled the other? We will never really know, right?
Yeah, okay, make that 3. Go FANS!!
Solarpower
Well-known member
DDO = all access without any type of money investments. Just play the game and gain access to adventure packs/expansions.
Spellpoints are part of the D&D 3.5 rules.
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woq
Well-known member
Restarting f2p is hellish though. Vast majority of groups play content you have no access to unless you lucked out to start when free code was around. Not many raids available. Not many gear farm quests available.DDO = all access without any type of money investments. Just play the game and gain access to adventure packs/expansions.
There are a couple stellar ones at cap - like Illithids chain and 1st part of Lordsmarch - but you need the paid half to leverage lordsmarch... Or you might be able to play catastrophe, but you cant play the quests people chain that with (i.e black and blue, newcomers, etc).
I recently tried to play with a new player who wasn't around for code and it was so damn hard to find stuff to play with them.
dur
Paladin. Disruptor. Since the 1970s
Don't understand this game, eh? It's got rules but keep at it and good on YOU for PLAYING MOAR GAMES
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Lopnel
Active member
https://www.ddoaudit.com/servers says we spiked in about 150 players per server recently and dropped to retain 50 new players per server... this is not a detailed statement but we retained alot of new players. Typically veteran players ask about if they got the free to play content pack and sadly that sale happens only once a year.
Somebody pointed out the OP aspects of Sonic Blast on-stream and it was all over.
I'd just have left it alone. It's not like there aren't a billion ways to be completely OP in early heroics, starting with have enough PL's and you are completely OP in early heroics.
Just wanted to add to the conversation the fact that DDO is insanely complicated for a new player.
Attributes, Class, skill points, feats, spell selections, tomes, enhancements, reaper points, gear bonuses and how they stack, weapon characteristics and what they mean, and a bunch of other stuff that no new player is likely to have anything beyond a small basic understanding of when they start.
You start a Mage (Wizard) in WoW and you get your attributes handed to you. You have a fixed spell list with linear upgrades as you level. No feats. No tomes. No reaper points. Intuitive gear and weapon characteristics. The only thing that is somewhat similar is enhancements but even then WoW's talents don't start until level 10 and they are 1 point a level after that, so simple to manage. DDO gives a player 40 enhancement points by level 10 and they are far from easy for a new player to prioritize or manage.
You start a Wizard in DDO and all of the above requires informed decision-making and as a new player you are woefully uninformed. Without vet help or the equivalent of a 40 hour class reading the forums and Wiki you are almost guaranteed to screw up your first few characters.
How is this going to encourage new players to stick around?
If I was trying to solve this problem I would look at two things:
1. Redo the tutorials to explain most of the above which they do not do now.
2. Create one path for each class called "Pick me if you do not want to completely suck for months." Have a panel of vet players who collaborate on making the simplest most effective path for that class and then once selected lock the new player into the choices it offers, preferably with a write-up somewhere on why it was created, what it does and where it will be at 20 if the player chooses it.
This is an anti-player agency device but it is for new players and they will be 100% happier with it than with the Wiz 5, Bard 1, Rogue 1 they will likely wind up with if left to their own devices.
For new players you really want to make the equivalent of a WoW Mage for at least the first 10 levels or so because DDO Wizards are new player slayers.
Attributes, Class, skill points, feats, spell selections, tomes, enhancements, reaper points, gear bonuses and how they stack, weapon characteristics and what they mean, and a bunch of other stuff that no new player is likely to have anything beyond a small basic understanding of when they start.
You start a Mage (Wizard) in WoW and you get your attributes handed to you. You have a fixed spell list with linear upgrades as you level. No feats. No tomes. No reaper points. Intuitive gear and weapon characteristics. The only thing that is somewhat similar is enhancements but even then WoW's talents don't start until level 10 and they are 1 point a level after that, so simple to manage. DDO gives a player 40 enhancement points by level 10 and they are far from easy for a new player to prioritize or manage.
You start a Wizard in DDO and all of the above requires informed decision-making and as a new player you are woefully uninformed. Without vet help or the equivalent of a 40 hour class reading the forums and Wiki you are almost guaranteed to screw up your first few characters.
How is this going to encourage new players to stick around?
If I was trying to solve this problem I would look at two things:
1. Redo the tutorials to explain most of the above which they do not do now.
2. Create one path for each class called "Pick me if you do not want to completely suck for months." Have a panel of vet players who collaborate on making the simplest most effective path for that class and then once selected lock the new player into the choices it offers, preferably with a write-up somewhere on why it was created, what it does and where it will be at 20 if the player chooses it.
This is an anti-player agency device but it is for new players and they will be 100% happier with it than with the Wiz 5, Bard 1, Rogue 1 they will likely wind up with if left to their own devices.
For new players you really want to make the equivalent of a WoW Mage for at least the first 10 levels or so because DDO Wizards are new player slayers.
Ryiah
Well-known member
And that's compounded by the premade paths that are supposed to make the game more palatable being insanely bad.
OMG, i have been playing for almost 3 years and i never realize i could do that. I feel dumb lol
Solarpower
Well-known member
Traditionally, I remind everyone that today's players were not born with knowledge of the game.
So... everything we can see in any CRPG game and in most hack&slash / action RPGs ?
Bjond
Well-known member
Very late to this thread, but there is a solution. The problem is that it's not accessible to newbies. Once you hit epics and especially by the time you reach cap, there are builds that can pretty much blast away nonstop forever.
The bigger problem is that the D&D Arcane play model is fundamentally unfit for an MMO. In D&D, the Wizard slinks along doing pretty much of nothing the entire campaign (other than making snide remarks about how powerful they are). Then, when you reach the finale Big Bad Guy, the party picks the Wizard up, lights it's fuse, and hurls it at the BBG.
This is NOT an MMO Wizard. An MMO Wizard blasts away nonstop all the time. It's constantly casting spells. You have to be creative with your DDO build to be able to that early or learn to conserve mana until you reach the blast-happy levels.
IMHO, DDO does a great job of trying to deliver an MMO Wizard with D&D flavor, but yeah, it's got warts.
The bigger problem is that the D&D Arcane play model is fundamentally unfit for an MMO. In D&D, the Wizard slinks along doing pretty much of nothing the entire campaign (other than making snide remarks about how powerful they are). Then, when you reach the finale Big Bad Guy, the party picks the Wizard up, lights it's fuse, and hurls it at the BBG.
This is NOT an MMO Wizard. An MMO Wizard blasts away nonstop all the time. It's constantly casting spells. You have to be creative with your DDO build to be able to that early or learn to conserve mana until you reach the blast-happy levels.
IMHO, DDO does a great job of trying to deliver an MMO Wizard with D&D flavor, but yeah, it's got warts.
Minako
Well-known member
One of the things that make me not want to play is the insane cost of this game. Yes, you can earn points at an insanely slow rate. The expansions run anywhere from 20$ to 50$ and if you want to get anywhere you need to get those. I do not mind needing a sub to get a lot of the adventures opened, though honestly you should get the adventure pack code as soon as you sign up. If you are a free player trying this out and seeing nothing but buy DDO points to play this! You are going to quit. Wizard 101 has the same problem. It is advertised as free to play, but all you can play is the very first zone then you start having to shell out money. It is a very simple would you rather make 50$ off five people or 25$ off of thirty people?
Changing the prices on stuff would also help with the biggest retention problem they have. Boredom. The main char that I play is level 23 on her second life and it is longer and longer between play sessions because doing the same crap over and over does get boring. I don't know if I am going to make it to 30 and do reapers which would make the leveling process in my next life better. The entirety of the game needs an entire reward rework. I would say over 90% of what I find is vendor fodder. Even end rewards that are supposedly tuned to your class when you turn the quest in are utter garbage. This is fine for older players that have played for years and years. They have gear for every level farmed allready and they have so much platinum they don't even open chests anymore. I would say that they only take tokens for reincarnating, but a lot have been playing so long they don't even do that.
The people that run this game do NOT care about keeping the new guy. They care about keeping the guy who has sunk twenty years of his life in this game and is to far invested to ever quit, because he is scared of having all that time and money wasted. All that matters now is selling as much garbage off the shop as they can before the last five people developing for this game are assigned elsewhere and the game is shut down.
This sounds like I am crapping on this game after only having played it for four, five months. I'm not. I like it. I have to play it solo because all the players seem to hate anyone who was not in their guild for at least ten years, but I do like the game. Otherwise I would have been gone at the end of the second month. I want to see this game keep going. Not all of DDO's problems can be waved away with "Oh it's an old game, of course it is going to have problems.* I used to play Meridian 59 for gods sake, and Pool of Radiance on AOL. They are not here anymore because they could not adapt over the years. Games have the same rules as living things do. Adapt or die. Stop being Activision, stop being Bungie.
Changing the prices on stuff would also help with the biggest retention problem they have. Boredom. The main char that I play is level 23 on her second life and it is longer and longer between play sessions because doing the same crap over and over does get boring. I don't know if I am going to make it to 30 and do reapers which would make the leveling process in my next life better. The entirety of the game needs an entire reward rework. I would say over 90% of what I find is vendor fodder. Even end rewards that are supposedly tuned to your class when you turn the quest in are utter garbage. This is fine for older players that have played for years and years. They have gear for every level farmed allready and they have so much platinum they don't even open chests anymore. I would say that they only take tokens for reincarnating, but a lot have been playing so long they don't even do that.
The people that run this game do NOT care about keeping the new guy. They care about keeping the guy who has sunk twenty years of his life in this game and is to far invested to ever quit, because he is scared of having all that time and money wasted. All that matters now is selling as much garbage off the shop as they can before the last five people developing for this game are assigned elsewhere and the game is shut down.
This sounds like I am crapping on this game after only having played it for four, five months. I'm not. I like it. I have to play it solo because all the players seem to hate anyone who was not in their guild for at least ten years, but I do like the game. Otherwise I would have been gone at the end of the second month. I want to see this game keep going. Not all of DDO's problems can be waved away with "Oh it's an old game, of course it is going to have problems.* I used to play Meridian 59 for gods sake, and Pool of Radiance on AOL. They are not here anymore because they could not adapt over the years. Games have the same rules as living things do. Adapt or die. Stop being Activision, stop being Bungie.
Smokewolf
Dissenting voice
DDO is initially more group focused, but unfortunately due to how the leveling / TR mechanics are setup, it doesn't play out this way for long. Obviously this creates a situation where a server can be some what full, but still have next to no one in your level range who's "Looking for more". That being said, you 100% need to tag along with a regular group, while directly coordinating your characters progress with that of your group.
Side note: Casters typically don't make great 1st life characters. When they typically lean more on gearing, past-lives and the players game experience. Sure its 100% doable but can be slow and painful for those still learning the game. After all, DDO doesn't have a learning curve so much as a learning wall... My advice is to do an Orc-Barbarian, learn the game and get some gear, before attempting a caster of any kind.
If you know what you are doing an EK/PM is a great 1st life character, especially a THF build.
If the reality is that you have to whack-whack-whack early on as a Wizard might as well make a build that is a superior whacker.
I'd refine my paths idea above by making pre-built level 1's that progressed on a path. This would allow SSG to pick the race and attributes of the character alongside the skills and feats. DDO would be *much* more familiar to an incoming MMO player if they just picked a character and leveled it the same way that WoW and the other mainstream MMO's work.
Then later on after their entry experience is a success they would discover "OMG, the customization possibilities are insane!"
Give new players the agency to pick a playable character instead of drowning in the deep end of the pool.
If the reality is that you have to whack-whack-whack early on as a Wizard might as well make a build that is a superior whacker.
I'd refine my paths idea above by making pre-built level 1's that progressed on a path. This would allow SSG to pick the race and attributes of the character alongside the skills and feats. DDO would be *much* more familiar to an incoming MMO player if they just picked a character and leveled it the same way that WoW and the other mainstream MMO's work.
Then later on after their entry experience is a success they would discover "OMG, the customization possibilities are insane!"
Give new players the agency to pick a playable character instead of drowning in the deep end of the pool.
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dur
Paladin. Disruptor. Since the 1970s
This is probably the cheapest MMO available, sans FOMO.