The Lowbie Experience

[Howlando]

As of next reset (v662), a lot of lowbie quests have been tweaked. Feel free to make further suggestions for how to improve the lowbie-experience.

[Spiffy Has]

Is this the 40xp tick?

[Howlando]

No.

[Vlaid]

Perhaps some lowbie quests much like the "explore mistlocke" chain of quests with each section directing you to another area, outside of Mistlocke.

For example, there might be a 4+ quest you pickup, directs you to go to the Scars, then another directs you towards the Delving, ect. With mostly vague directions to encourage exploration or seeking out other players to help you find them.

The general idea being to show newer or returning players some of the different regional/factional areas around the server that are open to them for occupying.

[VanillaPudding]

I disagree actually. Part of the reason (I suspect, at least) that we see more and more complaints is because of this base level increase that does not include any supplies. The "noob circuit " used to start at level 2 and run you to about 4, the exact level we effectively get for free by doing things now, yet you would have nearly half a page of minor / moderate supplies to help with the advanced stuff.

I think that I speak for most "vets" when I say that we avoid taking the old mist coffin ride until as late as possible, and we're sure that we hit up some of the oldies that some / most might not even think about. (Marching dead, sand  spiders, etc) Then upon entering Mistlocke we hit up that old bug tower for the oddities that almost certainly drop, such as a magic weapon charm and maybe even a blur or two.

The common player or new player will be at the same XP level (due to scaling of explore Mistlocke quests, delivering some letter, etc) but have -none- of the supplies that we do. Meanwhile there is absoulutely no hint at these things in game and yet they are crucial things IMO. I see people complain everyday in IRC about it, or even discuss quests like it is some MMO game and how they "avoid picking up PUBS" to do this or that.

What we need is to replace the old content that was removed (with new content) and supply the low level adventurer for their needs to come. Simply handing out level 4 is fine, but they -must- be introduced to the other aspects of the gameworld and have the chance to acquire things with very minimal combat.

[Pandip]

The quest difficulty is fine as it stands. I do, however, agree with VP in that the accessibility of supplies through lowbie quests shouldn't be something that is reserved exclusively to those veterans who know where to go at what time in their fledgling character. New PC's are, in fact, discouraged from straying from the top of the Ziggurat, when in fact some of the best supplies and experience can be gained by doing Marching Dead and then running off with the helmet from that quest to do stirges. But little "tricks" like this shouldn't be what a new player should have to resort to in order to have a collection of supplies worthy of doing -- and I loathe to use the word in this context -- "PUGS".

[Wrexsoul]

Being the one to have triggered this discussion I feel I should chime in with my thoughts. I am a -very- old player - In fact, I have been around since before the founding of the server, ever since Howland first announced the project. However, I have been on several long (over a year long) breaks, meaning I have often gotten to experience being a "new" player as well (so much changes in a year in this place). I've also never been a strategist in what quests to do and what builds to make, never really picking up on the little "tricks" that Pandip mention.

I've recently gotten back from such a break, and thus I experience much of the stuff the same way a new player would. As I hinted at, I don't think much about maximising my progress when starting out, so when I made my character (a rogue), I pretty much followed the scripted path and ended up in Mistlocke at level 4 with supplies from exactly one quest (the ziggurat cellar quest you get guided to; these supplies being one purple crystal, two tarnished brass wands and a few minor, not-essential potions). I play in a rather low-activity time zone (early evenings European time), so it hasn't been too easy to find questing groups.

Here's what I've found (I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum):

One quest felt both easy and rewarding. This quest was the Insect Gland quest, although I am sure it is much less rewarding if you don't have a character capable of both searching the rubble and extracting the gland.

A lot of the quests are fine, difficulty wise, but do not give out as many supplies as you use up to a non-optimal party, meaning they were a steady drain on the things I managed to gather up thus far:

 - Goblin Cultist cave
 - Troglodytes beneath the Tear
 - Granary

Troglodytes was done with a rather well-equipped and experienced character, so it wasn't too rough. Otherwise I can see it being a bit overwhelming, but it also doesn't seem like a "newbie" quest, so that's fine.

Three quests were particularly rough:

 - The Mist shrines quest in the Tower of Gods. Attempted with a fighter and myself. Had no idea what to expect, nearly got ourselves killed trying to take out the very first group, had to abandon due to not having Magic Weapon.

 - The Screaming Darkness in Old Stones, which I tried to solo (it being a 1-3 players max level 5 quest). The corridors were built so that a) the pot holes in the ground often made your character sidestep into the traps, and b) I got line of sight issues when trying a ranged weapon and ran straight into another trap instead of attacking. Falling down was a nasty business for a single character. Also, having several small monsters in cramped corridors means you get hit a lot no matter what unless you have high AC or Blur, making the quest very hard for most classes.

 - Wolves/Cattle: Attempted with myself, a fighter and a bard. The amount of wolves that spawned was astounding (many more than I remember from being around earlier), and we nearly got overwhelmed several times. All the cattle died since we couldn't attract the attention of all the wolves quick enough. The bard, who perhaps were new to the server (feel free to chime in with your thoughts if you read this!) went into negative hp at least 4 times. In the end we had to actually flee the quest zone to heal up, go back in and try to kill the remaining wolves. The only reason we succeeded was that I had a bunch of supplies from DM spice the day before, of which almost everything was used.

Now, the reason I brought this up is not that I want the server less harsh. I do not want difficulty cut back at large, I love it the way it is. However, I strongly feel that the lower level content is tailored too much to jaded veterans, who know exactly which path they are to go to maximise their starting stretch, and have plenty of "quest buddies" to keep them company. My argument is that you should NOT require previous experience with the server, and you should not require "quest buddies" to be able to advance through the starting quests. In both the original EfU (back when you were the most looted out fellow on the server with a 1/day See Invisibility item, mind, you youngsters don't know how well off you are), and EfU: Archipelago, the philosophy seemed to be that up to, and including, level 6 was very forgiving (you got a base collection of supplies easily, quests didn't murder you if you didn't have "thing x" or the optimal party). It was not until quest level requirements x-7 and up things got nasty.

It seems to me that this philosophy has turned into a philosophy of "the server loot level is out of proportion, and all players are very experienced with the game by now, so we can't let up too much in the beginning". While this train of thought makes perfect sense for those who are indeed experienced, know exactly where to go, know all the quests OOCly and have OOC friends to party with, it turns rather murderous if this is not the case. Keep the murder for the mid-high level content (we get there soon enough).

Another thing I've noticed, is that with nearly every quest being given out by placeables, gold is very rare starting out. I think I did 5 quests one day and ended up 30 gold richer. I'm not sure if this is intended, but it makes it very hard to use gold for anything as a new character if you don't, again, know which quests to run to maximise this aspect. As it is now I'm level 6 and some, and have amassed a grand total of 150 or so gold, which feels much lower than it used to be.

This turned into a very long read, so here are my concrete suggestions:

Note: If not otherwise stated, everything here applies to lowbie (level x-6 and below) quests. I do not want the mid-high level quests changed.

 - In general, no quests at this level should require previous knowledge of the particular quest, or being a veteran to complete without totally struggling (be it about specific loot, group compositions, particular mechanical strategies or otherwise).

 - Perhaps some quests could act as "tutorials" to some things all of us veterans "know". For example: The mist shrine quest, have an NPC hand you a Magic Weapon consumable and tell you "gosh golly, sometimes you won't get far here without an enchantment to strike the supernatural! It can be very beneficial in certain encounters." so you learn fighting the Mist Wraiths that you should be expected to have magic weapon on a lot of quests.

 - Make the lowbie quests hand out a bit more supplies - If run with a sub-optimal party, you end up using more than you gain for nearly all of the ones I've run. This isn't a promising prospect when these are the quests you're supposed to increase your supply level to begin with.

 - Be more lenient in the way spawns increase with increased party size. We shouldn't have to tailor our groups at this level. While this makes sense for the high level quests, it makes it very tough to bring along a bunch of new characters/players on a quest. I don't want to feel that I can't bring a new player along for a lowbie starter quest because the spawns will murder us, that feels extremely elitist and unwelcoming.

 - A few quest givers being added instead of some of the placeables would be much nicer, both from a RP and practical standpoint. It's much more approachable for a new character to justify a quest giver saying "Hey, I have a problem! I'll pay you if you do this!" when recruiting, rather than seeing a placeable and telling potential mercenaries he doesn't know very well "Hey guys, I saw something a bit odd and potentially deadly in a cave, want to go check it out for a picnic?". I have often felt I've had to go a bit against the nature of my PC to go on quests. This would also solve the issue of not getting any gold on most placeable quests, and allows for the NPC interactions (bluff/intimidate/persuade, alignment appropriate choices etc) that I confess to have missed a bit.

 - Reduce the amount of large groups of individually weak mobs on these quests. A swarm of 10 rats will not even break a sweat on anyone with a blur potion or a high-AC fighter. However, they will absolutely murder less fortunate classes/PCs. This creates a very binary difficulty (either you struggle extremely, or you're fine). Example; Wolves, each dealing around 3-7 damage. Against high AC looted out PCs, they don't hit often, and if you have blur, you almost don't get damaged. We had neither; I burned through something in the vicinity of 4 cure serious, 25 cure moderate, 15 cure light wounds, 4 bandages and a bunch of potions on that quest to keep me, the fighter and bard alive. The fighter used up everything it had. That's a lot of healing spent for a level 2-6 quest.

 - Solve the issue of there being super beneficial quests on the Ziggurat, but everything IC telling a new character to get the hell out as soon as possible.

 - The Gnome who tells you about the cellar quest in the ziggurat (the one you're guided to, where you climb down a hole in the same general area as he is) does, I assume, hand out the "search rubble for baubles" quests. Somehow, this wasn't made at all clear; I ended up doing the cellar exploration without having the rubble quest. Can his dialogue perhaps be modified to make the connection more obvious?

This turned into a very long post, and I apologise, but I felt I wanted to be as thorough as possible in giving my feedback, since I genuinely love this server. I will re-read it later and see if I can make some points more succinct, or if there is anything I should add.

Wrexsoul out.

[Pigadig]

Wherefore art thou Fat Rat?

I think part of the problem as well comes with the sheer randomness of the loot tables for some of the lower quests. Sometimes you win big, sometimes you lose.

If, say, you've got the knowledge of what quests you need to do, but you're not the best at mechanics, you might hit all the quests that VP mentioned. If you're good at mechanics even if the loot is terrible you'll probably still be better off. But if you're bad? Ho boy, better hope for some of the better loot rolls.

[Damien]

One thing that kinda upsets me is how you cannot do the rat meat gathering anymore because even as a level 3-4 you can trigger nightrisers spawning during the day in the sewers. Please make it a night thing or maybe a level min for them to spawn :(

Also I completely agree with VP, a slow introduction to the rough/harsh aspects of EFU would be great. I recall there was that rat invasion quest which wasn't too hard and had you fighting waves of rats over and over.

Oh and bring back the fruit quest!

[Howlando]

Walls of text....

I implemented a number of changes already last night, including magic weapon for the Hollows quest and various other tweaks. There is definitely no "philosophy" that the low level experience is supposed to be hard. The reason things are messed up is that basically no DMs enjoy making low level quests. Also a lot of the old quests were removed by a DM (who shall remain nameless) because he had plans to make a new system but then he didn't finish it. I will look into making more meaningful changes (adding new content etc.) for Mistlocke eventually...

[xXCrystal_Rose]

Basically no DMs like making low level quests huh... sounds like a challenge! Quest Idea:


A network of old, crumbling tombs is revealed deep in the mist shrouded forest. It houses the remains of various Wyrm Watchers each with their own tales relating to the founding of the isle or important events such as the Battle of Aggramant (misspelling?) and such. Someone had gone into the tombs to pay their respects but hasn't come out and the character(s) is tasked to go and bring them back incase they became lost.

The area is five or so different tomb sites with their own different stories relating to the setting and you have the choice of only one. Perhaps each could have varying difficulties; two intended to be soloable, two others able to be done 2-3 people, and the  last a hard one for a group of 5.

The easier tombs would be sparsely populated. Maybe a couple rats, and the Wyrm Watcher engaged in a fight with a big rat at the end. The other one might be in the process of being pillaged by kobolds. For medium difficulties it could be that the tomb is of a druid and for some reason the plantlife is growing out of control and malicious. The Wyrm Watcher at the end of it is entangled and bound by the plants and must be rescued (additional reward if he survives). The other medium tomb perhaps not combat oriented but filled with block mazes and mirror puzzles that must be overcome where if you make a mistake something bad will happen, and in order to reach the tomb and the Wyrm Watcher explorer you must solve the puzzle in X ammount of tries or else he dies (reward if survived). The 5 person group one would be completely empty. No enemies, no puzzles, no Wyrm Watcher. Just a strange misty talisman at the sarcophagus in the tomb.

All five tombs will have a similar ending. Once you rescue the Wyrm Watcher the easier lore and introductory phase of the quest ends. The ground shakes and rocks start to fall from the roof (harmless) that may impair movement. Some spawns might appear, scaling with the dungeons difficulty. You would have a certain time limit to escape as pitfalls (small xp bonus if you escape) begin to appear, and if you fail to reach the exit in that time the entire path is covered to the extent that the floor drops out and you tumble into a misty series of chambers with their own mist related whispers and lore things, and perhaps visages of prominent PCs, NPCs or old events. Once in a while there would be a hostile appirition, and you could engage in dialogue with some of these visages which may result in a minor token reward or may result in them turning hostile.

The 5 person group one would not be possible to escape. As soon as you touch the misty talisman the whole group is transported into a different mist chamber from the other four tombs as the ground falls out from under their feet. This is their real quest and it is a sort of toughie. Misty copies of allies would appear at different points in a misty cave maze joined with other tricks that DMs might come up with to make it scary and unpredictable.

The reward system would be based on sparse lootable piles in the first stage of the tomb, a bonus reward for rescuing the Wyrm Watcher in the 2-3 person tombs (and enhanced gold and xp reward at the end for being generally tougher), and for the 5 person one things could be found along the way in the mist caves and at the end each player might have a choice over a reward: speaking to a misty version of themselves they talk to themselves about their future fate; wealth, giving an extra gold reward; glory, giving a randomly generated item reward; survival, giving a small potion sack reward.


And there you have it! An exciting and variable low level quest that can either be done solo or with a group where the player has some sort of input on how they handle the quest, different possible outcomes and rewards, and different ways to teach about the server and give adventurers hints to things they might want to explore late on or build their career off of.


I just sort of pulled this idea out of my ass and made it up as I was writing it, so I'm sure there are ways it can be improved with actual thought and planning put into it.

[wcsherry]

OK, I do like making lowbie quests. We did add a few recently too. I do agree we need more, and some kind of in character way for people to discover them instead of blindly stumbling upon them too.

[xXCrystal_Rose]

An adventurers notice board warning about dangers outside (perhaps even with 5 'slots' where a person with paper and a writing tablet could make their own message to appear on the board, paying a certain ammount of gold for it to last a couple hours. Similar to the Public Notices board- use responsibly and actually include a DESCRIPTION instead of making the entire notice in the title).
Edit: Aberdenn clan members could have the ability to tear down PC placed notices should they be seen as graffiti or inflammatory.

Newly arrived characters are asked to talk to Bastian Gallenhart and receive a letter to the Aberdenn Hall. When you deliver that message after getting your reward he could be like "Hey, while you are here could I trouble you with a favor?" and from there a small dialogue where he mentions more local things inside of the town and might direct you to npc questgivers like Old Wallace or the cheese shop.

[wcsherry]

Yeah, this is all good. I would like to see fresh content added to the Caermyn zone as well.

[Vlaid]

Here's an idea:

Have some board like "Portal Rat Job Board".

Allow people of max level 5-6, take quests from these boards. You get a little bonus XP/gold for completing these quests (done via accepting the quest from the board and the clickie for completion placed at the end of the QA, possibly some other cleaner way to do it I'm not aware of).

This would be a good IC way of geting people to discover some of the lesser known areas/quests by having the little job notices give them some decent directions on where to go ect.

Have the board only have a couple of these types of bonuses available each reset, alternating through a pool of them so that each reset it might encourage people to do different quests based on what the Job Board has up.

Actually that might be a pretty good idea for getting even slightly higher level people to try out some different quests too!