New player discussion on community council

Community General Discussion
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over in the community council there is a thread started on concerns for new players. I though there was some really good points brought to light and I hope MicroActiBliz implements them.

A couple of things not mentioned though:

story - new players go from Exiles Reach directly into BFA with no explanation on why they are there or even who the major players are.

Professions - new players from Exiles Reach into BFA cannot use any professions (health potions, armor, bandages, food, etc.) until level 35 when they are most of the way through and in fact are not even told they exist.

discussion

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I want to add, new players do not get adequate training about what the auction house is or how to use it. They are not told that it’s a LIFO system, nor that there are restrictions on what they can and cannot post, and the cut/deposit system is not explained.

I’ve also seen many new players buying and equipping legendary gear templates (white quality with no stats) so the quality of gear could be explained a little better as well.

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The game doesn’t tell you the basics of macros at all. Also, addons. They should at least direct you to websites for those.

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I just think throwing them into BfA content without properly tuning BfA content for a new player experience. The dungeons are not tuned for low level characters and were designed for players who are near level cap and have all or most of their class kit available to them.

Exile’s Reach is a step in the right direction as a tutorial, but it could be expanded on and fleshed out. The tutorial gives instructions like
 press these keys to move, press 1 to fire off an ability. Is that really the kind of information new players struggle with?

I think more information should be given in game and not referred to 3rd party websites.

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The new player experience is terrible now. Players should be introduced to Professions in Exile’s Reach so they can learn about them. They should be able to use these professions in BFA as well.

In addition to this, at least the introductory quests to BFA should be reintroduced to the game. So they know the start of the war, meet a few people, and learn about the game. On the Alliance side, you’re dumped on Boralus with no clue. I think the Horde at least get to invade Stormwind and do that quest chain.

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Exile Reach is pointless. It teaches you nothing but how to get to 10 in about an hour.
You’re better off with your starter zones tbh.
The game isn’t newbie friendly by any means, though.

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The decision to funnel all new players into BfA was utterly nonsensical in pretty much every aspect. Story-wise, it makes zero sense. Being a later expac, it has absolutely no gradual introduction of systems/tutorial aspects. The dungeons weren’t built for players who have like 10% of their ultimate toolkit. The list goes on


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did community council achieve anything?

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Maybe I’m wrong but I feel like also exiles reach should be like its own unique server until you leave in such a way that everybody who makes a new character is on there. The beach head could be expanded upon and it be more like a legion invasion rather than set up as a king’s quest IV you just washed up on the shore heal your buddies thing, find your ring and whatnot.

It should teach you stuff as a group or you can watch what other people are doing as a group. And you’re not going to be held back or hold others back if you’re not as fast as everyone else.

Exiles reach is a step in the right direction but doesn’t go into enough detail about your class your spec healing tanking dpsing professions selling something and even just briefly teaching some fundamental basic stuff about PVP or interacting with the opposite faction.

Also a concern I have is that a new player will most likely choose a new player server that is potentially low on one faction or both. From there, their BFA experience will be quite empty and devoid of any kind of real multiplayer interaction.

I should know because I make a zillion alts all the time and other than the occasional random person you see especially once you graduated into chromie time, it’s either a Spam dungeon or a very lonely level experience.

I get that the design philosophy is to put us, as in new players, into the endgame as soon as possible but that transition from brand new player to a level 60 player is going to be met with an absolute deluge of things to do at max level that were not explained prior. And that new 60 player is going to be hit with 10,000 chores pulling him or her into 10,000 different directions.

Even when I started in 7.2.5 I was having to go to wowhead and other websites to figure out how to use the auction house how to correctly get in and out of dungeons how to make groups.

I was absolutely petrified to make my first mythic plus dungeon in Legion. It’s fairly daunting and scary but then once you do it a couple times it’s not so scary but it’s it’s those initial first attempts that feed into that video of this is my quit moment.

I have played games since the dawn of time it seems and I put up with a lot of high learning curves stuff before I reach a quit moment unless it’s resident evil 4 or some ridiculously hard game like the immortal for NES.

I think that it’s possible the designers had in mind that we are or were players from EverQuest who had come from a much more hardcore game and so playing wow did not require a lot of learning but rather adjustment to pre-existing knowledge.

The game is old enough now that if it wants to attract new players it needs to establish itself first as a trainer MMO and later introduce as a competitive esport.

:ocean: :dragon: :ocean: :dragon: :ocean: :dragon: :ocean: :dragon: :ocean: :dragon: :ocean: :dragon: :ocean: :dragon: :ocean: :dragon:

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I would also like to add the following to that discussion:

Allied Races for new players:

These options are nonexistent and a new player finds out after seeing others in the cities that nearly half of the races are unavailable to them until they level a character 90% of the way and do a lot of questing— some of that in places they’ve never even been or know how to unlock.

Proposal:

  1. Drop the zone questing requirements
  2. Allow the scenarios for each Allied Race to be run at level 10
  3. Make the requirements reaching level 10 and running the scenario

Reasons for this:

  1. Allied Races are a bit like a Hero Class, with special perks: starting at level 10 with some green gear, a mount and a tabard. This distinction should stay.
  2. Since DHs are still considered a Hero Class and the requirements are level 10, it makes sense to treat these Allied Races similarly.
  3. New players get out of their tutorial, tour the city and could be ushered to the Embassy to view the races they can unlock and be given the choice to run the scenarios, making it seamless for them to get these races and new mounts for them.
  4. They’d unlock the race they want after reaching level 10ish, meaning when they create their second character as an Allied Race, they haven’t lost any levels and start at level 10, with those added bonuses of new mounts and tabards and some gear pieces.
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Hi - I’d like to mention a few things of when I first started in MoP.

I didn’t know the story or the major players. It took a couple of years to get the basics - without watching any YouTube videos which have plenty of lore. I actually didn’t know to look there. I’d never played a video game unless pac-man, asteroids, or Oregon Trail count. I was 54; my older sons started me playing and just learning how to move. & generalities of the game - which is what Exile’s Reach does. I eventually supplemented lore with original Chronicles and eventually read all the books in order. So there is either Youtube or books to help understand. The game can’t explain every major event of 18 years.

Further, I didn’t know what a potion did or was really until some nice guy on Timeless Isle explained it to me and gave me a bunch of flasks. I also didn’t even transmog - didn’t know it was a thing. I was busy learning mechanics and trying different classes.

I did know about professions and liked it better when anyone could make bandages. It took me awhile to learn my professions. Didn’t know about food. My armor got so banged up a knight icon in red showed up and had to call my kids to ask what it meant. I found out about Icy Veins and Wowhead.

I empathize with the new player experience, but since most are young and savvy with the internet I’m sure they’re more than capable of looking this stuff up. What torques me is that they have made the game so complicated with systems that research now is practically college level - joke/sort of.

BFA catches the new player up enough with current content to continue the story. If anyone wants more knowledge use the tools available. My only complaint about Icy Veins, Wowhead, and youTube are that the information given for combat is not generally beginner level. Most of the combat rotations and videos are for the endgame content.

Basically What I’m saying is entry into the game now isn’t much different than when I started in Mist’s.

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New players don’t see Allied Races on character creation:

So


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So instead, they’re left completely in the dark and still without access to nearly half of the races. That’s not any better.

Also: edited to remove that part where I was wrong.

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The very basis of introducing players to the game is to slowly ease them into complexity. Showing the base races, letting people play around on character creation and then pushing them to the shiny new starting area, that IS an improvement over the old zones at teaching the game, is better.

“But the lore”. That’s a criticism of old players at what they think new players “should” know. I think that is unrealistic to expect new players to fully understand a franchise at least as big as the MCU.

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People will know who/what you mean if you say “Blizzard” and you won’t look like a random internet troll.

Win/win.

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I did a version for GD

To continue the topic from our side, also i did one for professions, since Worldpvp did one but it seems that nobody cares about that
 we need more CC members, nobody reply to professions only Halitee and Worldpvp

The state of CC forums is really bad, it was launched too soon and now even if Blizzard don’t reply, there’s not too many members to keep some topics alive.

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There’s nothing complex about 10 more race options, though. And not having them is turning off new players.

My proposal isn’t about teaching new players gameplay mechanics. It’s about making sure that Allied Races are kept as Allied Races, while also giving everyone an easy opportunity to acquire them. So I’m not sure what exactly our conversations have to do with one another?

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I saw tweets from players that want to play allied races because they like the race, however there’s so many barriers even with some requirements removed.

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New players pretty much get zip, zilch, nadda
 No explanations on anything
 but absolutely to everything you stated!!!

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That I disagree with your “new players should have allied races ASAP” take?